


Amaranthus

by vanitaslaughing



Series: Mark of the Dreamer [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AFAB!Regis, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Who keeps a Daemon in their office? Ardyn does. Ardyn definitely does. Bad man.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:24:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 27
Words: 146,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9911198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: “Get up. We won’t have long ere the cycle pulls us back in.”“I don’t want to, Ignis. It’s been six lifetimes and we’re still where we began – hells, he got madder between this time and the last time.”In which three royal retainers get granted the chance to see what becomes of their liege; in which one royal retainer accidentally gets pulled into this mess. They live, they die, they live again - over and over, with different names, slightly different faces, but always with their memories of their pasts dormant until enough time has passed... or until they see him again.





	1. Four - Beginnings

He clicked his tongue, almost as if he was disappointed. A familiar amber gaze was fixed on her, the last woman standing in the middle of a village in flames. It didn’t seem so long ago that she had tried to rush in with the two people lying next to her in puddles of blood and black ooze to help the very man who was now staring down at her with a cold expression and a snarling smile on his lips.

“Too bad. You were _so close_ this time, dearest Aranea. Mayhap if the King of Light were a person that already existed, you could have won.” There was black blood running down his face, staining his all too familiar clothes, and she choked. Whether it was on the fumes of the fire or on her own blood, she wasn’t sure. “Alas, that person is not here. Is not born. Perhaps the Six have abandoned you as they have abandoned me; and you are simply forced to live through failure after failure, lining up endlessly until they decide it is time for their new Chosen to arrive.”

She gagged and spat out blood. Her sight was swimming and the noise was already dimming out, but she had to say one thing before sleep took her again until the next Awakening. “Even… so… we have to… try… Highness.”

He slowly dragged his fingers across a deep cut on his face and looked at the black blood that now covered his fingertips. He looked rather disgusted for a moment, before waving his hand a little and turning around.

“The Accursed and his dishonest little retainers, and both of them spew lies just as these houses spew flames. I shall see you next time you awaken, Aranea.”

She collapsed, choking and gagging helplessly as blood filled her lungs and the world vanished into familiar white noise.

* * *

Aranea Animosa was no fool. That, her sharp wit, and her excelling skill with a lance had granted her a high position in the royal guard before one of the princes begrudgingly accepted his mother’s orders and picked up another two people to become his retainer for the next trip around the kingdom. She hadn’t even desired being picked, she had just arrived as her commander had ordered her to, almost as begrudgingly as the prince himself. Maybe that was how he managed to find her, with a scowl on her face and her eyebrows knitted together. She had better things to do than stand around in parade rest and wait for that sluggish young man to pick some unfortunate fools to come along with him. She let him know that much when she growled at him, and suddenly the irritated prince’s eyes lit up.

“Her. She will accompany me and mine.”

The other person – Aranea never learned his name – died about a week into the travels, throwing up black blood and sludge and convulsing violently under the prince’s gleaming hands.

It was about that time she opened up to this young man and his two companions and accepted her role as newest royal retainer.

She learned quickly that Ardyn Lucis Caelum was blessed with a most unusual power, one that he intended to use for good – as well as cursed with a half-brother whose competitive mother and second wife to the late king had ensured that said young man was equally nastily competitive. Granted, as Ignis Pacis told her one night at a campfire, it was to be expected from someone who was born to a Quasso; naturally Izunia Lucis Quasso would be nearly as competitive as his mother.

In fact, she learned a lot more about the world at large thanks to tagging along to the prince – her first curious but kind of idiotic question to Ardyn had been about his two last names. Apparently it was tradition that the royal last name was to be passed down, making everything kind of awkward-sounding, but that stood true for nearly every royal or high-up family across all of Eos. Given that Aranea, Ignis and Cor were commoners they had only their normal last name.

“Really, ‘twould be much easier if they just let me go as Ardyn Caelum – they insist on the Lucis, however.”

Years passed, and Aranea had to admit that it might have been for the best for her to arrive that day with a scowl and a growl. Despite all attempts, Ardyn had refused any more retainers ever since – he said he preferred a tiny group that did not attract too much attention out in the wild and in villages, and that he trusted his three more than anyone else. It would be an understatement to simply call them retainers; the three of them were warriors. Cor Vigilis was ruthless and skilled in combat when he needed to be and otherwise looked completely unassuming. Ignis Pacis was a devious tactician with a certain knack for magic. Aranea herself was swift on her feet and deadly from above. Between these three the prince barely had to do any defending.

Ardyn was more than grateful for that when his power waned and wavered the longer his travels continued. Whenever they were back in the capital he spent hours at the crystal, which neither of the three were allowed to approach. In the last year Ardyn had looked nothing but ill.

He was pale to begin with, but his entire face was ashen nowadays. He barely slept, he barely ate, and was dangerously thin. Yet he insisted on continuing his travels, claiming that the capital was too choking with his mother dead, his half-brother taking care of their deathly sick father, and his step-mother raging like a harpy because she had gotten thrown out of the castle. The retainers had agreed with hesitation, and still made certain he was as safe as one could be in the wilderness.

The campfire crackled quietly in the fair summer night, and Aranea leaned backwards a little. The silence that covered the haven was occasionally interrupted by a shuffling noise and the odd quiet groan, but otherwise no one else spoke for a good while. The stars above seemed to glimmer stronger than usual – which never was a good sign. It told stories of a gods’ choice; even though none of them had been born when Solheim had fallen there were elders still alive that told of the quiet nights with a bright star-blazed sky on the night before the fall. She could see that Ignis noticed that too, and the silence became an uneasy one once they realised that they were all thinking about the very same thing.

It was Cor who eventually broke the silence by clearing his throat.

“… He doesn’t have much time left.”

Ignis sighed heavily. “We know that. Black blood is usually the last stage before a transformation.”

The fact he was already uncomfortable in a haven was enough of a warning sign, one that had manifested nearly a year ago. The people seemed to pick up on something being _wrong_ , though they never really guessed it correctly and were still grateful for his help. The Starscourge was not a sickness to be taken lightly. That was what Ardyn always insisted on saying, no matter where they went, no matter which run-down crying mother begged him for help.

The three retainers sighed in unison and looked over to their protégé prince. They had been called back to the capital, urgently. Which only meant one thing: the king was on his deathbed. Izunia’s tone in the letter had suggested the selfsame thing, seeing as it had been written with a shaky hand. Even so… Ardyn hesitated. He seemed unwilling to return to Insomnia, to his dying father and his half-brother. They had no idea why the man would hesitate like that until a few days ago. And it was a truth they wished they had never learned.

Black blood, running down Ardyn’s face, mixed together with equally black tears – it was a terrifying thing to behold, and it had taken Aranea a fair share of power to not run away screaming. In the end her loyalty and the bond with her liege had won the internal fight she had had there on that very spot over the corpse of the slain Garula.

It also explained why the usually tame creatures had suddenly attacked.

The campfire crackled. It would be a sound that Aranea would come to love and loathe at the same time in the years to come.

The return to Insomnia was eerily quiet, and the castle was just about as empty. Ardyn was leaning onto Cor and eyed the white curtains.

Finally when footsteps clicked on the floor, they all froze with a certain sense of foreboding. It was Izunia Lucis Quasso, completely on his own. Izunia _never_ went anywhere on his own, he was always followed at least by one retainer. Ardyn’s near blank stare grew dark for a second as he turned to face his younger half-brother and got nailed with a glare in return.

“He passed several sunrises ago.”

“I figured as much.” Compared to the clear and deep voice of Izunia, Ardyn’s sounded like he was minutes away from hacking out his own lungs in a coughing fit. “I--”

The normally rather shy Izunia suddenly raised his hand to shut his half-brother up. Something was wrong here, and the three retainers cringed slightly.

“You are requested by the council, Ardyn. I am to bring you there – alone.” He then clapped his hand, and a young man bearing the colour of Izunia’s personal guard hurried in. “Gemmae, please show my dear brother’s retainers where they can rest.”

The three of them watched as Ardyn slowly followed his brother. The skittish young man Izunia had called ‘Gemmae’ on the other hand nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Good grief. He’s barely half your age,” Ignis whispered to Cor as they followed the poor blonde who was no doubt very uncomfortable leading them to some unused quarters. He started shifting his weight again once he stood still, which made his messy blonde hair bounce around strangely. That guy was way too pale for Aranea’s tastes. Everything about this was filled with warning signs, and the poor young man seemed wholly incapable of not nearly breaking into tears as he unlocked that door to let them in. She looked at Ignis and Cor, who were looking back at her with a scowl and knitted eyebrows respectively – they too noticed something very odd about this. Aranea tilted her head to silently ask the de-facto leader of this group what to do, but all Cor did was shake his head.

Which meant they were to play along to this mess.

Surely enough, as soon as they thanked Gemmae and entered the room, the young man shut the door behind them and locked the door.

“Fantastic.” Ignis just sunk into a chair and rubbed his temples. “They swept His Highness away, and locked us up. What does that tell us?”

“We’re in trouble.”

“That’s saying it too nicely, Cor,” Aranea shrugged, “I’d say we’re in _deep shit_ this time around.”

They remained in there for several days. It would have been so very easy to knock down their poor guard whenever he opened the door to give them rather fancy food, but they collectively elected against it. It would only cause Ardyn more trouble than they were worth, and so they remained. Eventually even Gemmae started questioning it and went as far as leaving the door open to speak to them on the eighth day.

“… Why?”

“Why what?”

He fidgeted. “You could have killed me seventy times over by now and escaped without anyone even caring about the fact that there’s a dead body sprawled on the ground. So… why?”

 _That poor kid_ , was Aranea’s first thought. He looked positively terrified; which apparently Izunia had known and assigned him that very spot. Perhaps he was counting on the fact that they would break out and trample over this poor servant. It made sense that Cor saw through that and thus gave the silent order to not do precisely as the other prince had thought they would react.

“We are not animals that spill blood for spilling blood’s sake.” That was all Cor had to say for the poor servant to choke back a sob.

The door slammed shut but they heard the blonde lean slam himself against the door and starting to cry in earnest out there. The three of them stood around kind of clueless, until at last Ignis moved. He was the youngest, and though none of them had siblings he knew how to handle someone younger than him. A soft knock.

“Gemmae.”

A choke.

“Did whoever ordered you to watch us claim that we were monsters?”

“… Yes.”

Cor and Aranea shared a mildly alarmed look.

“Who ordered us locked away?”

“...”

It was easy enough to guess – Izunia, seeing as Gemmae wore the colours of what was referred to as Crownsguard. The same colours that Aranea, Cor and Ignis sported whenever they were in the capital for longer than a few days. They heard the boy inhale slowly as he got up again and opened the door slowly. He looked thoroughly spooked.

“’Prompto,’ I was told, ‘those people are the same as him.’ I wish I had the courage to stand up to that, but I… I…”

Aranea raised her hand. “Him?”

“… H-His… His Highness Ardyn.”

She dropped her arm. All of a sudden she thought she heard the campfire crackle again, was moments away from having a familiar conversation with Cor and Ignis – she saw that the two of them thought of the same thing nearly immediately. Cor shut his eyes. Ignis curled his hands into fists.

“I-I…” A deep inhale. Prompto Gemmae still looked terrified, but at least somewhat more composed when he stepped into the room. “They will have told him that you betrayed him. Just as they told me that you are monsters.”

“Never!”

“Over my dead body!”

“What!?”

For someone quite literally scared out of his mind, Prompto managed to hold himself together quite well. It was something Aranea could appreciate; normally children and young adults that scared were bound to start screeching and running as she had learned during her travels. Prompto did nothing of the sort, an unusual paragon of collectedness.

“They found him guilty of treason, I heard. Master Izunia was shrieking about it for a day straight, and I think several servants paid for… foolish interference… with their lives. The crystal apparently… the crystal rejected your liege. Our liege. The one the king named his true heir upon his passing. They… the council… called for his execution.”

Icy silence. Aranea found herself standing in the back row in parade rest as the prince slunk around with a glare. She saw him grin at her once more, heard Cor and Ignis call for him and the four of them travelling the lands together. Saw the countless villages and villagers that begged for his help, how he still offered them his hands even though he was swaying and stumbling, even though exhaustion marred his face. All the times he bled for them, all the times he nearly _died_ for them. All of that, all the sacrifices he made… for this?

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait. This is the eighth day or us being in here. They should have questioned us before sentencing him, we have spent years with him,” Ignis said, his voice barely shaking. Aranea once more found herself admiring his composition even in the worst situations. “Normally the eighth day… Gemmae!”

The blonde buried his face in his hands. “It is today. It has possibly already started.”

“No! Gemmae, we will have to--”

The door fell shut behind them. All four of them tossed themselves against it with a yell, but the only thing that answered them was the click of the door being locked again.

An hour passed. They were all four sitting on the floor in a circle, hands pressed together in silent prayer. Maybe the Six would answer them. Maybe the Six would call this off, save their chosen Healer, help him.

There was no answer. Another ten minutes passed, and Cor got up. The window in this room was sealed, and jumping out of it was simply impossible anyway. They would have died, impaled on spikes, or broken their necks. Still, he walked over to the window, his hands again clasped together. Seeing that alone was enough to drive Aranea near mad – he had never been one for fervent prayer and begging the gods for help.

He opened his mouth, apparently to say something, but before he could he dove out of the way with a scream. The window shattered as an Armiger weapon drenched in fire and blood burst through it and embedded itself in the wall.

The four royal retainers stared at the weapon as it burst into glittering shards – but the damage had been done. The curtains had caught fire, and it ate through the cloth and the wood around this place faster than they could react. They were trapped, in a room on fire.

Prompto was sobbing again, Ignis was patting his shoulders. Cor had his face buried in his hands.

Aranea prayed. She simply begged the Six to not let this life she had end like this – it had been a dream, a good dream, but she didn’t want to awaken in fire.

* * *

‘ _Open your eyes. Your prayer has reached Our ears, servants. The Six refused, the Seventh answered. While we could not grant the wish you begged for, we can grant you another power instead. Sleep, for now, sleep. You will awaken again, until time sweeps you here again. When the four of you are reunited in this place, again shall the tide carry you off, until the man we call Accursed will be swept along with you.”_

* * *

She awoke to a familiar crackle, a familiar campfire. Aranea groaned and squeezed her eyes shut again, only to be nudged with a foot.

“Get up. We won’t have long ere the cycle pulls us back in.”

“I don’t _want to_ , Ignis. It’s been six lifetimes and we’re still where we began – hells, he got madder between this time and the last time.”

She opened her eyes to stare at Ignis Pacis with contempt, but found him instead sitting next to her. The campfire crackled and she turned her head a little to see Cor Vigilis with his face buried in his hands. The man had died second this time around, taking a blow intended for her.

“Madder between this and last time…?” He quietly muttered into his hands, and Aranea finally sat up to look at her fellow former retainers. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught one more person on the edge of the haven that was the place they washed up on before the cycle pulled them back in.

“He said that we were close. Claimed that maybe the Six abandoned us like they abandoned him.”

Awkward silence spread across the haven as the other one moved in slowly, with the young man sitting down next to Cor and putting a hand on his back. “The Healer continues trying to fight his blood, then?”

“More like,” Aranea gestured at the older man who had moved in from the shadows, “he’s trying to keep himself from fighting it. Surely, he took us out like we were nothing, but we are not in those old days of all of us serving the royal family any longer. I was just a farmer’s daughter, for Shiva’s sake!”

Ignis hummed. “True. I was a farmer’s son as well. No training, no skills other than farming. What about you two?”

Cor groaned and dropped his hands. “Healer. Though people are starting to call these menders, or in some Niff regions ‘doctors’. No fighting, but I could mend broken bones.”

“Bred cattle,” Prompto Gemmae muttered as he patted Cor’s back slowly, “I didn’t want to follow the current Lucis Caelum’s call to arms and got executed for my troubles. I’ve been here for a while, all on my own. I kind of feel bad saying that it is good to see you all, but it.. is good to know I didn’t wash up here all on my own for all eternity.”

Aranea Animosa, royal retainer of Ardyn Lucis Caelum, had to hold herself back from shrieking. They were getting effectively nowhere, and their waking time was running out now that all four of them were here. Indeed, as soon as she opened her mouth she caught a glimmer on the edge of the campsite. All four of them stiffened and bowed their heads as the lesser known seventh Astral trotted onto the campsite and swept its long tail across the ground in one fluid motion as it sat down.

‘ _So you return yet again.’_

In the distance she saw the telltale signs of unused, uninhabited havens against the dark, star-filled sky, and Aranea wondered if there were any others. Every time they ended up as complete group again there were no others. They could not leave this haven, the very last haven she had ever rested on in peace. The campfire crackled in the same way as it had back then, and she was certain that one day she would be able to laugh here again… but today was not that day. She still tasted her own blood slightly, and she narrowed her eyes at the Astral.

“Was there even a point this round around,” she hissed, “or are you indeed trying to play us for fools?”

‘ _We cannot change fate of blood non-royal. Whence you go forth from here you accept the fact that you might just return here mere hours later, for your new life died ere it began.’_

A familiar haze set in, and Aranea shook her head. She couldn’t allow herself to fall asleep now. Beside her, her companions too tried to shake off the sudden sleepiness.

It was Cor who fought it off enough to raise his voice again. “Just… just one question...”

‘ _So speak.’_

“The King of Light… will they be there… Carbuncle?”

‘ _We cannot tell. Neither can the Accursed. Nor can you. Only Bahamut knows, and he sleeps. All we do is watch the dreamers return whence they came, ensure their sleep until their memory awakens is peaceful, and see them off when they wash up here once more.’_


	2. Cor - Io, Io

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight suicide warning for this chapter, it's not graphic but mentioned in the 6th paragraph once another character starts telling their backstory!

“ _Good to see you, Cor.”_

“ _Aranea. How long have you_ been _here?”_

“ _I only lived until I was seven; little Ira didn’t live for long.”_

“ _Ira...?"_

“ _Perhaps you heard of her. According to stories she stood in the way of His Royal Majesty Izunia Lucis_ Caelum _. Can you believe that? Can you believe people actually believe that name change so easily--”_

“ _It’s not that easy, Aranea. The people are easily swayed by royalty. But, alas, maybe I should tell you the tale of Io.”_

* * *

He blinked open his eyes.

Golden light was falling through the window, nearly igniting the dust that floated about the room. He covered his eyes with an arm while trying not to groan – something about rooms looking like they were on fire always made his heart pound as if he was burning alive in this very room. It had been like that since he was a child, and now that he was 25 it continued on.

Io rolled out of bed moments later; there was no use mulling over this strange childhood fear of his. Merely twenty or so seconds after he finished his morning routine there was a knock on his door and a barely concealed, very excited giggle.

The Citadel in the morning light was one of the most gorgeous views of all of Insomnia, and many people would have given nearly everything to be there. All it caused in Io was a strange sense of dread and loss, a melancholy that did not seem to befit someone so young as him. Still, despite the waves of feelings he couldn’t quite place he opened the door, and was nearly bowled over by a ten-year-old.

“Io! Io…!” The giggle, the bright smile, and he couldn’t help but grin back at that small bundle of energy. It made protocol hard to keep, especially since the boy’s father was barely available these days and his mother dead a week after he had been born. Nonetheless, Emil Lucis Caelum was a joy to have around, even if he was higher maintenance than other children his age. Perhaps it was the fact he was royalty and supposed to be heavily guarded. _Supposed to be_ , anyway.

“Emil… where are your guards?”

“Escaped them! They’re probably still on the first floor, trying to get the poor little prince out of a suit of armour!” That smile the kid wore was one of pride – he had escaped his captors, the guards assigned to his side by his more than paranoid father.

According to some of the older servants, the King had not always been so paranoid. Stubborn and insistent on safety, perhaps, but never outright paranoid. Whenever he asked about when that had changed, all Io got were scared glances to the left and the right, and then a gesture that told him they were not supposed to say that. Once he even watched a rather young maid get executed for nearly telling someone else why exactly the King had gotten that paranoid. The person who had asked got away with having an eye stabbed out. Which, apparently, was rather nice of the King. About three weeks later they found that person mauled in the streets. It made Io shudder whenever he thought of it.

“Goodness gracious, Your Highness. You’ll be in trouble. Shoo, go, I’ll be right behind you, just make certain you arrive before your poor instructor has a heart attack.”

* * *

The instructor had a heart attack. Allegedly. A few years later. Io caught whispers of the man getting executed, and he believed that more than the heart attack story.

Poor Emil didn’t leave his room for a week and emerged on the eighth day suddenly a lot more knowledgeable than a 13 year old should be.

* * *

It wasn’t until Emil Lucis Caelum reached the age that the Kings and Queens normally left the city that people said much about what had apparently happened a few weeks before Io had been born. His headaches were getting worse now that Emil was 18, his dreams were filled with visions of campfires, of a room that looked eerily familiar on fire.

Now that he was supposed to leave, people started chattering. Io found himself less interested than he was supposed to be, in any way. It just filled his lungs with the smell of burning, made it hard to breathe. Something was extremely wrong, and not just because Izunia forbid his son from leaving.

“Are you okay?”

For all the height he gained in the past years thanks to his growth spurt, Emil still had a boyish face and rather wide eyes, framed by his wild black hair. The only thing he really kept was the bright smile and the even brighter head, though ever since the instructor incident the prince had used it for something constructive instead of simply ticking off the unfortunate men and women assigned to guard him. Speaking of whom… Io looked around. There were no guards.

“Io?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, yes, I am quite fine, Your High…” Somewhere behind Emil a commotion started. Several servants like Io hurried away as heavily armoured people filled into the hallway, and the prince rolled his eyes with a sigh.

“Great. Here comes the big guy.”

Io was essentially Emil’s combat instructor. He had somehow, very quickly, ended up being the only person the prince confided in. There were several people that Emil Lucis Caelum could speak to, but most of them kept a cold distance between them and the prince – naturally, as they were supposed to. But all Emil wanted was just one person to listen to him instead of saying that what his father did was right. He found such a person in Io, when he was about eight. A man who simply did his job, teaching the prince how to wield his weapons, but did not avoid the prince otherwise. Thus, he ended up clinging to Io whenever he could, intercepting him at every opportunity. Many people joked that the prince managed to learn Io’s entire schedule by heart when he was nine; when Emil turned 14 he admitted actually learning it by heart.

Of course, that did not pass by the king. Which had been Io’s single biggest fear – something about that king unsettled him, about these ever vigilant but otherwise blank eyes. On Io’s 26th birthday, the king formally invited him, and judging by the reactions from the other servants that was about the same as getting executed. They were all more than surprised when Io returned with his head still in place.

It turned out to be a mere formality thing, since Io had assumed what many people called a retainer’s duty; something that the king had abolished when Io was five. There were no royal retainers, the only one who stood beside the king was someone called Amicitia. And it was Amicitia’s son who would one day do the same for Emil, apparently, the boy was being trained for that very thing. Therefore, Io was essentially in the way. He dashed the king’s worries, and claimed that he was merely supporting the prince until the day Amicitia was ready to take over the job.

Emil grimaced and turned around to face his father.

The king looked much older than he actually was.

“What now? Wasn’t locking me up here enough good you’ve done today, father?”

There were whispers of the king actually not having the right to be the one on the throne, but there was barely anything more than whispering. Nearly every single person in the castle was about the same age as Io – or younger. But that one man behind the king cringed a little, to which Io simply raised an eyebrow. He was the king’s personal steward other than Amicitia, and one of the few people who were older than Io.

“If you insist on your folly,” Izunia’s voice always sounded strained. Io had no memory of the king ever sounding anything but incredibly tired, but he could nearly imagine his voice like it should be, “then go without your last name. If you are gone by sunrise, so be it – I know you well enough to know that you would simply grab your servants and go.”

With servants he clearly meant Io and no one else, but Emil barely reacted. Indeed, the prince merely crossed his arms and hummed a little. “Without my last name? Why that?”

 _Because going as Lucis caused_ him _no end of grief and trouble._

Io blinked.

 _He_?

He missed what the king did next, and he just saw the man turn around with slumped shoulders. “Go as Emil, not as Emil Lucis Caelum. That name is cursed, but your grandfather insisted on this being the royal family’s name.”

“Fine. Emil Caelum then.”

“Emil Quasso. You have half a year; after that is over I want you back and take your place in court. That is all.”

The people in the hallway watched the king and his entourage return to where they had come from, and several nervous pairs of eyes darted to the prince. He waited until his father was gone, then turned to look at Io with one of his bright smiles.

“Pack your things! We’re going at the rise of the sun tomorrow!”

* * *

Emil had never really left the ruling district of Insomnia. It showed, clearly, and he trailed behind Io – who was, despite several pleas from the man himself, the only one the prince permitted to come with him. Io himself was much more nervous than he liked admitting. Something about leaving the city with a prince was daunting, but there was another kind of dread that settled in the back of his head and refused to explain itself. Thus he marched, lead the prince through the city with little incident, until they reached the city limits at around noon. It was precisely this part that Io dreaded.

The very city limits was the part of the city that several people lived in who thought nothing much of the royal family. Indeed, ever since the incident where a little girl had gotten killed that sentiment had only surged up more and more, and this very part was the only way in and out of Insomnia.

He’d made certain Emil looked more like a scholar on a journey instead of the prince on his way out of the city, but nevertheless someone started following them in broad daylight. Even worse, following his prior excitement to finally get out of Insomnia the prince now looked more exhausted than anything else.

“Once we are out of Insomnia we can rest, but for now we will have to carry on.”

Emil nearly started pouting. “Right. I’ll be right behind you, Io.”

That person was still somewhere behind them. Io did not want to take any chance with that, but the silent travelling made them all the more suspicious to these people. At least he had briefed the prince on their disguise before they had left.

“How were your studies in Insomnia?” That question was enough to make the person stop for a moment, but not enough to persuade them that they had nothing to do with the king these people in this part of the city so disliked.

“Plenty informative. I have certainly learned more here than I did in Altissia. On the other hand, I’m really looking forward to going there again.”

At least Emil knew how to play his role perfectly, and they continued slowly as to not attract more attention.

Of course they attracted more attention, when Emil accidentally walked into a person. Said person had their back turned to them, and Emil had been looking somewhere else, taking in the sight of the water surrounding the city, whereas Io had also looked where his charge was looking.

The person that had been following them called out something that Io didn’t quite catch, but it was enough to make him freeze up. At least Emil had the grace to apologise immediately and almost profusely to the person, who then turned around.

Something in Io’s head came to a screeching halt. That face was familiar, as if he looked into a picture through a very cloudy mirror; something about the way this young man then smiled and shook his head made Io’s entire world shake as if an earthquake suddenly took place in Insomnia. Still, the man’s smile then faltered once he saw Io. He looked rather confused.

“No need to apologise, it was… my fault.”

Emil still bowed his head, perfectly playing the role of the polite but awkward student on his way back to Altissia. If this man weren’t so utterly confusing, Io would have complimented Emil later on his excellent skills of being someone else entirely.

“Say, uh,” the young man – he was barely older than Emil – murmured once he diverted the attention of the people around here, “why are you travelling with a man employed by the king? That sort of thing could get you killed out here.”

Io went pale, Emil opened his mouth.

“How do you...”

“Doesn’t matter. Come, I’ll show you the quickest way out of here.”

They followed the stranger despite better judgement – they were inevitably going to get lost in this place, and the people were still wary or slightly hostile, so asking for directions would have given them away somehow.

Insomnia was behind them about an hour later, and the stranger finally stopped.

“Perhaps introductions are in order now.”

Io shot Emil a warning glance, but the prince merely shook his head. “Emil. This is Io, he’s just supposed to bring me home.”

“I see. My name is Ignatius.”

The prince’s protector couldn’t shake the feeling he heard that name somewhere before.

* * *

It turned out Ignatius was truly one of the Accordan students that came to Insomnia to study, and he rather quickly saw through the paper thin disguise of the wayward prince and his knight. Surprisingly enough, even though the student looked sour when he heard the king’s name, he then helped them perfect the disguise. Perhaps it was because he and Io constantly were staring at each other as if trying to remember something, but the three of them got along rather well.

Ignatius. even went as far as helping finding a secure route to settlements through havens and other, smaller villages. Emil wondered more than once how an Accordan like Ignatius knew more about the land than the prince himself, but the man just waved his hands around dismissively.

“I study geology, Your Highness, I probably know more about most of Eos than you do.”

Within a month Ignatius became something like a royal retainer to Emil, much like Io had done during the prince’s life. He didn’t mind at all – Emil was opening up to someone other than him at long last, and the Accordan certainly was an interesting person who seemed like a well of knowledge.

It just were the evenings when they rested at havens, with Emil long asleep, that Io wondered what exactly drove this man. The two of them did not speak much unless absolutely necessary, but they spent these nights sitting at the campfire and watched the stars. It felt nostalgic, but as if something was missing, and nearly every time Io wanted to ask why exactly they both wore this melancholic expression whenever these nights came around.

When the third month, the half-time mark, passed, Io found himself sitting at a haven again, staring at Ignatius. The Accordan was staring back with furrowed brows.

It was that exact moment that Io’s normally foggy head cleared in an instant, and he heard the crackle of fire loudly through his pounding heart. It all came back to him – nights beside campfires, fire eating through the room, travelling the countryside, fire, fire, fire…

They both gasped.

“Cor!”

“Ignis...”

At least it was late enough that the prince was fully asleep and rolled up, but the two of them still went to one edge of the haven.

It was Ignatius who began, slowly. “… So that’s how it goes. We just… become someone else. Somewhere else, even. And we regain our memories over time, maybe around each other...”

“It appears so. Still, that was… strange.”

“Very strange indeed. But I suppose that’s how I recognised you as someone from the castle before I even rationally thought about it.”

They both crossed their arms.

“Perhaps,” Io began, “we should start at the beginning.”

“Feel free to.”

And so he told his story. Born as only child, he found himself in service to the crown rather quickly. It was a wholly unexciting life outside of training and service, until Emil came along and he was made the prince’s personal trainer. When he finished at the day that they left the castle, Ignatius furrowed his brows even more.

“So… he let you and his son go, leaving you nothing but his mother’s last name as a stand-in for Lucis Caelum?”

“Yes.”

“How exactly did he pass that he was Lucis Caelum to the masses anyway? I thought they all knew that he was Lucis Quasso.”

Io inhaled. All those whispers of the king not being Lucis Caelum made sense all of a sudden. “The previous king never told people which was which. Only those who worked in the castle knew that Izunia was a Quasso, and Ardyn a Caelum. To the outside it just were the princes Ardyn and Izunia, and the fact they were only a year apart in age made it rather easy to cover this whole mess up. Which means, Izunia could easily claim himself the Lucis Caelum and Ardyn the Lucis Quasso, _especially_ if Ardyn was found guilty of… treason.”

Ignatius pinched the bridge of his nose. “How… peculiar. But it makes sense.”

“How about you, then? How come you’re Accordan?”

“… I was born in Altissia, but I barely lived there as Ignatius. My father came from Insomnia, and after my mother died he took me and went back there. I was just a year old then, and by the time I was old enough to actually know what was going on, he had married again and I had a younger sister called Ira. Fantastic little girl, devious, clever… she was a little bit like Aranea, now that I think about it.”

“… _Was_?”

He sighed, deeply, and stood up. “There’s a reason the people in the outskirts don’t like the king or anyone in the castle. When she was seven and I was thirteen, I was supposed to watch her. Our father was sick, and her mother out of town. So I went to get a remedy in the main parts of the city. Except, being thirteen, I couldn’t watch my energetic little sister while making a purchase, so she slipped off. I don’t know the exact details, but somehow she got into the restricted parts of the city, and managed to stand in the way of Izunia. Next thing I know, there’s a mass of people gathered up around the broken body of my little sister. Father’s sickness got worse and he passed a few days later, and when Ira’s mother came home she… she turned back around and never came home. She must have contacted my uncle, because when I thought I was going to die from hunger he arrived and took me to Altissia with him, but… I found out she committed suicide, just a few days after leaving me on my own. I was on my own for nearly two months, Cor. Sure, the neighbours tried to feed me and make sure at least one of them lived, but… we were all poor. Eventually the weakest would get eaten, and I was the weakest. I suppose these people thought I eventually went and followed my step-mother; I was visiting my childhood home and all its painful memories when the prince walked into me. These people didn’t even remember my name, but they remembered Ira and how her death ruined an entire family that did nothing but try to get by peacefully.”

He’d heard of a girl that once stood in the way of the king. Everyone had.

“… It wasn’t the king who killed your sister. It was… It was a young guard, barely out of training, who acted more than rashly.”

“...”

“I know it doesn’t undo what has been done, Ignis. Gods, I… I can’t believe this myself, now that I hear it, but it wasn’t the king. It was just an overzealous idiot who tried to cover up what he had done once he realised what exactly happened.”

An hour of silence. Then, finally, Io moved.

“Ignis,” he said slowly, “or, well, Ignatius. Now that we understand how this system works properly, do you reckon we should find Aranea and Prompto Gemmae?”

“I don’t think it’s that easy, Cor… Io. Remember? They might be anywhere on Eos, or maybe even dead already. Besides, as you and the prince both said, you’re on a time limit. A time limit that runs out in three months, and I will have to return to Accordo eventually. If even just to tell my uncle that I am going to Insomnia again. As I said before, I will continue this travel with you and the prince until it is time for you to return, but after I see you back to Insomnia I will have to go home. Not as Ignis, but as Ignatius.”

“And I will see the prince safely back to Insomnia and remain at this side until he he longer requires me – that is the oath Io gave, after all.”

* * *

The following two months were peaceful. Indeed, other than the fact the nights got more and more dangerous, it didn’t seem like about 40 years had passed since Izunia had sentenced his own brother to death and taken over the throne. It was unsettling now that he remembered the travels he had had before, with danger around every corner despite having someone around who could knit torn flesh apart faster than the injured bled out. But the wildlife seemed subdued, somehow.

On the last week, already en route to Insomnia, Emil stopped next to a Garula. Ignatius and Io both nearly had a heart attack when the prince prodded the creature gently. After all, they had gotten nearly trampled and mauled by these several times in the past.

Nothing happened.

Emil’s scowl only got more intense after that, and Io nearly feared that the prince had figured out that something was off about the two people who followed him.

“I can’t believe this is working.”

“P-Pardon, Your Highness?”

“ _This_.” He gestured at the herd of Garula behind them. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but father’s use of the Crystal somehow managed to entice and subdue wildlife in the kingdom. I’ve heard they were quite dangerous before his coronation.”

Of course the prince had no idea, and Ignatius raised an eyebrow. Io, on the other hand, suddenly felt dread wash over him. He couldn’t quite pinpoint it, but the rest of the day he felt uneasy and looked around frequently. Something about the way Emil had suddenly casually talked about his father and the use of the Crystal unsettled him and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was extremely off.

The last settlement before Insomnia was small but filled with people who passed through; therefore most places were full. They were just taking a small break here, but there was one person that, once more, unsettled Io.

Maybe it were the clothes that looked an eerie lot like what Ardyn wore, or the extremely short but still oddly curly hair, but he felt like he was seeing a ghost. A ghost that nearly casually chatted with some people, with a smile on its face.

A ghost that watched them leave, watched the new king take the throne four years later and become known as the king who developed at least the bases for a lot of infrastructure to the Kingdom of Lucis and the Crown City Insomnia especially.

Io never returned to the city. He made certain Emil would arrive unharmed and in one piece together with Ignatius, but when he saw several agitated people stand before the bridge they would cross in a few minutes he pulled hos two companions aside. Those people would most likely recognise Io as man of the crown, but the prince and the Accordan looked plenty inconspicuous if they went on on their own.

It worked out perfectly, with the two supposed scholars passing into the city without incident – and the man of the crown passing out in a bush somewhere. It made sense in a way, since after the Ira incident everything had gone to hell for the general populace.

It was one hell of a throne that Izunia would leave Emil, Io surmised as he slowly bled out. Just for a minute someone was staring at him with familiar hazel eyes; a ghost, gone before Io could even think of anything but the crackle of a room on fire.

* * *

“ _That doesn’t change my opinion on him much, Cor.”_

“ _It wasn’t supposed to, Aranea. It was just an explanation.”_

“ _Ugh. Great, all of you got nothing done and I was Ignis’ younger sister who died way too early. Just fantastic, if that’s how it’ll always go. Speaking of Ignis, he’s still out there?”_

“ _He is. Probably stayed in Insomnia with Emil. Well, Emil Lucis Caelum II. … I suppose the two of us wait for the others.”_

“ _Bah! I’ve waited here for half of an eternity!”_

“ _Well, you’ll have some company for the second half, then.”_


	3. Prompto - Aster and Ace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off; thank you guys for the? super sweet comments? Like, I was, crying for a day over these, so ;v;  
> Second off; either Nier Automata will eat my entire head and knock me out until Episode Gladio releases, or it'll somehow give me enough of a surge so I churn out Ignis and Aranea's as well as the first interlude and pass into the second set of lives before Ep Glad. We'll see.
> 
> Chapter warnings: None, really, other than character death.

“ _Good afternoon, Prompto.”_

“ _Eep! Oh, goodness, I thought I was here on my own, Ignis!”_

“ _No, you are quite not. I lived until 15, then the Starscourge took me. How about you?”_

“ _Oh… I was Tenebraen this time… but Aster’s case was… Gods, where do I start with that...”_

* * *

The Tenebraen summers were beautiful, or so visitors from other places told him. It was chokingly humid, they would say later, complain about the heat and the headaches they got from it. At least people from Lucis and Accordo usually were like this, the ones from Niflheim were not complaining about the heat – these people had it even worse with the humidity after all.

Still, Aster rolled his eyes every time a Lucian or Accordan complained about the summer humidity. Sometimes he bit back comments about how dry and hot the summers in Lucis could be, or that Accordo was ever at the mercy of the Tidemother; but usually he held his tongue. He’d been taught better manners by his parents and he was not going to embarrass them just because comments about the climate made him mad.

Aster kicked a root and sat down on it. He was a hunter, someone who crept around in the middle of the night to see if travellers got into trouble with the Daemons. The Oracle had essentially created this task force that made sure the nights were peaceful. On the other hand, it was dreadfully boring when nothing happened, and as much as Aster liked the peace he would have liked _something_ happening even more. But there was nothing, the Daemons were calm and so were the nights he patrolled.

Perhaps people were over the excitement of a new Lucian ruler to take the throne. Queen Aura Lucis Caelum IV was already revered as one of the bravest people in Lucis and her ascension to the throne after her father passed away only marked what people called the beginning of a new era. Still, it also meant that there were no people getting lost in the forests of Tenebrae on their way back home, which in turn meant less attacks on people and therefore more and more boredom for Aster. He was getting frustrated.

Finally, when summer ended on a high note, he heard something in the night. The unmistakeable rustle of someone fleeing Daemons and the chattering screeches of at least ten Goblins that followed that person. He drew his sword and followed the sound until he heard a dull thud.

Indeed, whoever that was, they had gotten their foot caught in a root and fallen. Before the Goblins could reach that person Aster jumped in, sword drawn – he would have complained that Goblins were too easy for him, but that person looked exhausted. A few fast jabs here and there followed by strokes, and within ten minutes the two surviving Goblins fled screeching.

“Are you quite alright there, Mister?”

The person groaned and rolled over.

He wore a traditional Lucian garb – maybe some sort of scholar? – but seemed to be lacking any travelling equipment. There also was no sign of a Chocobo anywhere, so Aster wondered what this man was even doing out here. With a sigh he sat down next to the man and checked him for any injuries. Other than dirt on his face and his clothes he seemed to be quite alright, and finally he opened his eyes. For a startlingly long second Aster thought they were glowing in the dark like a Daemon’s, but he shook his head and the eyes were normal. Perhaps he was seeing things.

Now that he saw the man’s face proper, Aster couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen that face before. He quickly dismissed it as nonsense, much like his dreams of fire, and smiled.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re badly hurt. ‘s the leg alright?”

It seemed silly to talk to an older man like that, but usually people who were running from Daemons reacted better to someone friendly instead of icy cold and professional. And much as Aster suspected, he got a reaction from the man at long last. He nodded slowly.

“Doesn’t… seem to be broken or anything...”

“That’s good. Do you need a hand with getting up?”

“… Should you really be helping a stranger that got nearly mauled by the most base of Daemons, Tenebraen hunter?”

The hunter blinked and then broke into laughter. “Really, Sir? You’re quite a riot.”

The man’s expression was absolutely unreadable when he finally sat up and looked at Aster. Apparently he was judging him.

“No matter how pathetic a hunter thinks it is, they are to protect without second thoughts. I hunt Daemons that are hunting people, Sir, simple as that. And to be frank, it’s been downright boring in the past few weeks – you’re the first person I’ve come across in ages, since I sleep during the day. And I’d rather have an interesting conversation with someone who got chased around by Goblins than have some ungrateful brat shoo me away after I take down a Red Giant that was after them.” He stood up in a sweeping motion and offered the stranger a hand. “Really though, let’s get you to the nearest village. Those Goblins that ran away might come back with something else, and I’d rather hold a conversation in peace than try to converse while fighting.”

The stranger brushed a few strands of messy hair out of his face, shook his head with a confused expression, and grabbed Aster’s hand.

* * *

He was Lucian, and rather hesitant to give out his real name, before finally settling on “Ace”. Aster didn’t press the issue; he fully understood why some people preferred to not give their names to total strangers. Still, a false name was better than no name at all, and Aster nearly gleefully showed him around the place.

“Are you from here, G… _Aster_ , was it?”

“Aster, yes. But no, I’m not from here. I was born much further in; you’re near the borders of Tenebrae here. I’ve just been stationed here for a while, and that’s why I know my way around.”

Ace looked around the village. It was small, smaller than some others in the region, but Aster quite liked it. Several people he’d saved lived here by now, and they were always more than happy to see him – normally hunters were supposed to be invisible to the general populace, and most Tenebraens ignored the hunters. Those exceptions were rather nice, and made the job less lonely; hunters usually only conversed with the people they rescued and the occasional odd hunter they came across and teamed up with. Human contact was rare, mostly because a hunter’s life usually ended with contracting the Starscourge if they were not torn into shreds by Daemons before that.

“Where are you going to go now? I can probably get you a way back to Lucis--”

“No. I’m not going back to Lucis. I was thinking of staying in Tenebrae for a while.”

Aster raised an eyebrow. Sure, people were moving all over Eos at any given moment, but what he heard from Ace so far was that the man had no notable family. He wasn’t married either, had never adopted a child. Not even a Chocobo. The man was completely on his own, and had somehow gotten lost in the outskirts of Tenebrae. There probably was more of a story behind that, but even though the curiosity burned inside him he knew better than to pry. Again, his parents hadn’t raised him to be about as well-mannered as Daemons.

Ace, on the other hand, looked mildly uncomfortable. It was very early morning and Aster had just finished eating – the man had politely declined any food – and being amongst civilisation seemed to unsettle him. _Probably chased out of his home,_ Aster eventually thought, _and now homeless and scared senseless._ It wasn’t unheard of that such things happened in Lucis, even though the newly crowned queen had promised to put a stop to this for now.

“Like, it’s not much, but you can stay at my place until you wanna continue. I’ve got plenty of maps of Tenebrae and the surrounding region; you can use these to help you find a way to wherever you’re going. I’m pretty much nocturnal, though, so keep that in mind.”

Ace narrowed his eyes a little as if in thought, and then shrugged. “That would be much appreciated.”

* * *

It quickly turned out that Ace was quite a capable fighter despite the obvious limp. Somehow the man always followed Aster on his nightly excursions, but the hunter came to quickly appreciate the company. Ace was still rather secretive, but once he got his hands on a crossbow he at least managed to help with the Daemons.

“Why don’t you try mingling with the people in the village, though?”

“…”

Eventually he claimed he was not good with people, and once more offered no more explanation. There seemed to be a severe lack of trust and some sort of inexplicable fear of other people; once more Aster eventually reached the conclusion that this poor guy had indeed been chased out of his village, possibly because he had gotten sick and people mistook it as Starscourge. It was ridiculous; the Starscourge was a terrible sickness.

Aster would know, after all.

About a month after Ace finally said that he wanted to help out in Tenebrae as hunter, Aster started feeling dizzy whenever he woke. Slight fever followed him wherever he went, and he’d been a hunter long enough at 35 to know that this only meant one thing – he caught that dreaded sickness. Every hunter eventually did, he had resigned to that fate as soon as he accepted the position, but it still terrified him. The way the nights seemed to be getting much more comfortable than the few hours of sunlight. The way his head spun every evening and throughout the night. The way his reaction time got more and more sluggish, the sheer amount of pain he usually was in.

“Hey. Are you alright?”

“’m fine, Ace.”

“Are you really quite certain of that?”

“Absolutely.”

A shadow fell over Ace’s face as he carefully made certain he would not drag his leg into another root and stumble. Over the last few weeks Aster had, alongside the pain, started dreaming of fire more. He almost heard voices in his dreams now; especially a woman’s voice usually stood out. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but the one time he wasn’t in a burning room but beside a campfire, she laughed and wove at him when he stepped on that clearing. But usually Aster’s dreams were of fire and darkness, of nothing but a dreadful feeling of guilt.

So much guilt that it seeped through whenever he looked at Ace, for some reason. But something about that tired face that sometimes seemed to light up with barely concealed fury when he thought Aster wasn’t looking made the hunter’s entire heart fill with dread.

The evening he got up, keeled over and threw up was also the morning Ace suddenly raised a hand.

“You’ve got the Scourge.”

Aster froze. “No way.” The least he could do would be playing the fool.

Ace, on the other hand, furrowed his brows. “Dizziness spells and balance issues. Physical exhaustion despite clear lack of exertion and fairly regular sleep.” He was even counting down with his fingers, which would have been oddly endearing if he wasn’t listing clear symptoms of the Scourge. “Sensitivity to sunlight – yes, I noticed that, even if it simply was the morning sun. Changes in eye colour and strange luminescence; if not straight up yellow glowing eyes in the dark. Changes in blood colour, nausea, nightmares. You show nearly all symptoms; your eyes are glinting in the dark. I doubt you would let me draw blood to check, but I am rather certain it will be darker than it was before.”

“… You sound like you’ve seen your fair share of people succumbing to this.”

There was a far-off look in his eyes before he closed them and shook his head. “You have about a month at this rate, Aster.”

The hunter just cracked a smile before answering: “Yes, I know that.”

“You,” a look of disbelief, “know that?”

“Like I said. I’ve known since the moment I accepted this position as hunter – Tenebraen hunters contract the Starscourge or die to Daemons. That is what we do.”

Still, the man drew his fingers through his hair and looked around before tilting his head. “That is no reason to give up.”

“There’s no cure.”

“… No cure. Right.”

That far-off look Ace wore for the rest of the day was so melancholic that it hurt Aster more than his aching, tired body.

* * *

“So, tell me. Why were people up this early?”

“Ah. Of course. You’re not… Tenebraen.”

Ace rolled his eyes – he’d gotten kind of restless in the last three weeks; Aster noticed that even through the daze he was constantly in at this point.

He laughed and pointed at a tree.

“It’s blooming season. I can’t think of any Lucian holidays I know that compare to it, but basically they’re going to celebrate once the flowers start wilting away. That’s in about… three weeks, I’d say? People start getting up early and going to sleep early in these times, and there’s quite a lot of celebrations and festivals all across the country in the final week of that. You should go see that! I grew up in a more crowded area, and those festivals were always the best part of the year. All those colours. The flower motives repeating in a pattern; some people even painted them on their houses just for these three weeks!”

Ace hummed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

It wasn’t like Aster was going to see that ever again.

* * *

The hunter’s eyes snapped open and he rolled over clutching his head. When had he fallen to the ground? His heartbeat was so fast he could feel it in his throat – his throat was extremely dry and it only made the headache and the overall ache worse. His sight was swimming.

When Aster finally managed to see straight, all he saw were boots. It was enough for the headache to suddenly click into place and vanish; and his already dry throat filled with the taste of fire.

“Y… You… Ardyn...”

Those boots were Ace’s. Except the man’s name had never been Ace, and he was quite literally a ghost Aster was making up now that he remembered.

“Ah,” the voice was laced with venomous amusement, and Aster slowly looked up to stare into these glowing yellow eyes, “so that’s how it works. I thought I was imagining my former retainers’ faces on random people in the past, but you… Prompto Gemmae.”

“… Y-Your… Highness.”

Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the man who he had effectively lived with for quite a while, glared down at him.

“Perhaps it was the birthmark that gave you away. However you and the traitorous pack did it; you certainly managed to get yourself into a bad position. I’d have to applaud Carbuncle if the slippery bastard weren’t playing with me either.”

A wave of nausea rolled through his body, and Aster was retching and clawing at his face. His sword was just a few inches away. If he could just muster the power he could… grab his sword and…

“H-How… did y...ou...”

The smile was, by any means, Daemonic. He had never heard of Ardyn Lucis Caelum smiling with his teeth showing, and that grin was more than unhinged. The fact his entire face contorted and started oozing black grime did not help; the sharp golden glow of his eyes cut deeper than any sort of weapon, even through the haze of pain Aster was in at this point.

“Oh, the Hexathon was quite playing its tricks on me. The price of healing, as these Oracles will learn now that they gained said power, is to give up your humanity. Every drop of blood in my body ran pure black by the time my dearest brother sentenced me to death. But, being a plaything of the Six – I did not die. I _cannot_ die. Not until the prophecy the Draconian unveiled to Izunia Lucis Caelum I comes into motion.”

The man leaned down and grabbed Aster’s face. It would have been a crushing grip if Aster hadn’t already been trying to hold back screeches of pain. He slowly drew his thumb over the birthmark that Aster had on his jaw.

“Carbuncle. The four of you will live, and die, and live again, until either eternity comes to an end – or until whatever the Astral bound you to comes true. I wonder how long you’ll last. But, I suppose, you turning into a Daemon will set at least your memories free to return and wait until the next round starts. Too bad; it would have been more than hilarious to push Izunia’s little favourite retainer-in-training’s Daemon around.”

The night was as they always were in Tenebrae – mild and mildly humid, with a breeze going through the trees. The first petals and flowers were falling already; blooming season was coming to an end and with it the celebrations would begin sooner rather than later. Perhaps people would be painting flowers on walls somewhere at this point, and Aster couldn’t help but think back to these times in that moment. His parents always did so as well. Everyone in his birth home had. But no one in the outer regions did.

Ardyn let go of his face, and he didn’t have the strength left in his body to keep it from crashing onto a root. He didn’t even know if it broke, but it certainly started bleeding – black blood. His body was just entirely numb, and finally there were black spots in his vision.

Just for a split second it looked like Ardyn’s expression changed to something like regret, before fury lit it up again.

“Burn in hellfire, Prompto Gemmae.”

“… Not to worry… we already did….”

Aster closed his eyes – he didn’t open them again.

* * *

“ _...”_

“ _Aster’s – well, my – life wasn’t that bad, honestly. It was just the end that was… terrifying, really.”_

“ _Come sit next to me, Prompto.”_

“ _Just… just one thing, Ignis. Sometimes… sometimes when Aster thought his name was Ace, sometimes that fog lifted and he was… downright friendly. Careful even. Aster would have succumbed to the Scourge earlier were it not for him helping. I think I… I think I understand the three of you now. And I promise I’ll help you to the best of my ability.”_

“… _. Thank you.”_

“ _Guess we’ll be waiting for Aranea and Cor, then?”_

“ _Indeed.”_


	4. Ignis - Alacris' Theory on the Mark of the Dreamer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "hahaha, nier will probably consume me and i wont write" - woman who got nier on eu release  
> "hahahahahahhahahhHHFHAHG IM ON FIRE" - woman, 4 days later, on fire
> 
> chapter warnings: sanity slippage?

_Ah.”_

“ _Thought you were going to be on your own, Ignis?”_

“ _Perhaps, perhaps not. Last time I arrived I was on my own, and I lived only marginally longer than this now. How come you’re here already, Cor?”_

“ _An idiot thought jumping off that roof would not be detrimental. Said idiot snapped his neck upon impact.”_

“… _Oh.”_

“ _What about you, Ignis?”_

“ _It wasn’t even a violent death, but Alacris’ life was painful. Wait, I’ll tell you...”_

* * *

Alacris normally did not pay much mind to his brother’s studies. But this time around he stopped, and demanded to see the book.

Pictured was a birthmark that looked eerily like the one on Alacris’ shoulder, and the accompanying text was about a theory on rebirth and an Astral known as Carbuncle.

Back in the days of Solheim there had been the major and the minor Astrals, but the minor ones were thought to have been wiped out with the Scourge thanks to Ifrit. According to scientists and scholars all over Eos this was a much worse loss than technology, because with all of these gone, magic remained outside the reach of normal mortal men and women. Those who could do as much as conjure forth a spark were usually seen as someone who was blessed by the Astrals, but back before the fall even the poorest person still had the ability to call forth fire to keep themselves warm as long as their energy lasted.

Still, looking at this image and remembering all the times he’d tried making sure that this _was_ a birthmark after all threw Alacris off-guard. He was sitting there with his mouth hanging slightly open for about a minute, and then turned the pages of the book in hope of finding anything else.

There wasn’t much about the Mark of the Dreamer in there – it was simply noted that most people who bore that mark were simply too slippery, too easily tangled in a net of death following death following death. But, and that was the only additional thing Alacris found, it was said that these people remembered their former lives.

He went to look at his shoulder in the mirror once more, but it still looked like a near perfect copy of what he had seen in the book. The Mark of the Dreamer, the sign that this person was under the protection or spell of a Carbuncle. Just one, but which one was hard to say with how many of them perished in the aftermath of Solheim’s fall. Perhaps it was just one left; one that took care of the Dreamers.

Alacris would have tried unearthing some sort of memory immediately afterwards, but as usual his body refused to do it. He was desperately trying to stay conscious, at least to make certain he was still breathing this time, but his legs gave in and the world went black and he was absolutely certain he was not breathing properly as usual.

* * *

It was pretty simple.

He wasn’t going to live longer than 25. Everyone said that much, from the moment Alacris was able to understand what death meant. He didn’t fear it, he always saw it as an opportunity to finally get some peaceful sleep. Sometimes he wondered which Astral he had to curse for his inability to breath properly and his extremely faulty lungs and a family that would not let him die to end this pointless suffering.

Now that he had read about it, he started to understand. And thus he started researching it. Alacris’ brother was more than surprised by that, but decided to humour his younger brother. After a week or so of essentially begging his parents to let him go to Insomnia with his brother, he finally got the permission. He’d never even left Galdin Quay, but the fact that he was both leaving his birth home and going to the Crown City was exciting and frightening at the same time. His brother was enough of a travelling companion for the time being; he knew what to do whenever Alacris collapsed, and once they were in Insomnia people might even know how to lessen the symptoms. There was no cure for that, after all, but it might ease the suffering.

The first few days in the city proper were overwhelming – the king had gone over his predecessor Emil Lucis Caelum’s plans for infrastructure expansion which had been scrapped with the king’s untimely demise, and overhauled them, thus expanding the city properly for the first time since King Emil’s time. Once he settled in, his brother made sure that he had permissions to get into every library except for the parts of the Royal Central Library that were closed off to the general public and even most people employed by the castle. Alacris checked the smaller ones out first, but they barely held any information on what he wanted to know.

Thus, about a month after he moved to the Crown City, he started going through the Royal Central Library.

It was a gorgeous structure not too far from the castle, with decorations so elaborate it nearly put the castle itself to shame. There were hundreds of students and scholars mixed together with the general populace in here, yet despite all that the library was a quiet safe haven in the middle of the surprisingly lively city.

There were plenty of corners where there were just a handful of chairs and a small table, some others had benches seated underneath large plants next to the windows.

Alacris’ favourite spot was one on the first floor; just a small table with about six chairs and a small bench off to the side underneath one of said plants. Despite how cosy this place was, barely anyone ever went this way due to the fact that barely anyone was interested in old religions and old Sol teachings any longer at this point. It was so far in the past for most people that they didn’t think much of it, and language had evolved since.

The young man didn’t mind the silence. It made going through all these books he eventually amassed easier, and it also helped with focusing his breathing. His brother had already taken him to several supposed healers, but none of them had a clue and offered nothing to help the situation. The worst had been one who had claimed that Alacris was afflicted by the Scourge – it was plain to see that he _wasn’t._ Ever since his brother’s course started up again, though, Alacris had been mostly by himself.

Another month passed, and he had again barely found anything – but also barely exhausted the sheer amount of books offered in this place.

It was one sunny autumn morning that Alacris stopped dead after grabbing a book he had noticed yesterday.

There was someone sitting in his usual place. The man must have noticed how Alacris had suddenly stopped dead, and offered a weak smile in return. For a split second.

The two of them stared at each other, and in the back of Alacris’ head he remembered that he had the Mark of a Dreamer. Perhaps that sudden change in expression had something to do with a past life he did not remember. Cautiously he set the book down on the other end of the table, and slowly sat down as well.

“I reckon we’ve met before, then?”

“Ah?” The direct approach certainly managed to throw that person off. From the slight frown he’d worn he’d gone to a rather confused expression.

“I’m afraid I can’t remember your name, but judging from your reaction and the sudden headache I’m getting, we’ve met before I was Alacris. I’ve only managed to learn so much, and I still lack a lot of information about it, but--”

“No. You’re correct. We have… met before.”

“Is there a chance you know what my name was before I was Alacris?”

“...”

“Or, perhaps, your name?”

“… San.”

That name didn’t ring any bells, but Alacris tried finding something, anything. His memories refused to spit out what he needed, and he drew at a blank. “I… see.”

The man raised an eyebrow and Alacris himself started going through one of the books he had grabbed again. It was an awkward silence that choked the area until the man left sometime during the afternoon.

Every odd day San would sit somewhere in the corner where Alacris usually read his books. Once he managed to explain the Mark of the Dreamer to San, the man nodded sagely.

“I had figured as much. I may not look like it, but I did spend a fair amount of time in that course once; I realised by the time you had left what you were talking about.”

The two of them laughed, and Alacris told him that his brother was taking the same course, though they had moved on to the other minor Astrals since. He openly admitted that he figured out what the birthmark was pretty quickly from looking at the picture and then his shoulder alone, which San acknowledged with a slow look and a strangely melancholic look in his eyes. Perhaps they had known each other well before Alacris had gotten the mark

It was about that time that Alacris found actual information about it, and started devouring the books that contained said information. He learned several things, up to and including the fact that there were several kinds of Marks. There were certain hooks and lines on the mark itself that showed how many people were linked together, or if there was no link at all. From that information alone Alacris was able to deduce that three other people were in this mess together with him, even if he had no idea who they were. Whenever he thought about that he only heard the faint roar of fire and twisted, barely comprehensible voices in the distance. People in the past had observed that there were even several colours, often stating the reason of the mark, but that had since been lost. Apparently every mark was the same nowadays except for the links and hooks that showed how many people were locked in that roundabout way of living and dying together as a group.

There had to be more. He didn’t dare asking San.

* * *

Breathing had gotten so much harder in the past weeks. It had never been easy for him to begin with, but Alacris had started staying in the apartment his brother and he lived in in Insomnia instead of going to the library. He missed the place, the way the sun fell through the windows, but he could barely move properly. There were days where he went because his body felt alright, but usually he found himself more exhausted than ever before soon thereafter. Eventually, once he arrived in the library on a good day, he found San sitting there and staring at him.

“I had no idea that you were _that_ sick, Alacris.”

“W...what?”

“… I was a healer in another lifetime, and you certainly look ready to drop d--”

Healer.

Healer. Healer. _Healer_.

The word seemingly echoed through the library, and Alacris put his head in his hands. San’s expression barely changed, but Alacris felt like he was on fire.

“Th-That’s.. right, you… you were a healer. I, I think I remember seeing you… heal.”

Perhaps San was waiting for Alacris to ask him he he still could heal, or if he knew anything about this mess. At least his expression looked like that now, but Alacris merely shook his head.

There was no way to make his body work properly, there was no way he would even live until his 20th year – he was going to die sooner rather than later, and he was grateful enough that he managed to even turn 19, let alone manage to live long enough to get out of Galdin Quay. Thus, with a slight smile, he shook his head. San apparently understood, because the man’s eyes widened from across the table.

“I need to… go home… get some rest… see you...” Alacris dragged himself back home. He swore he felt San’s stare the entire time.

* * *

It was storming that day. The rain was hitting the windows hard, and he’d essentially bundled himself up on the nearby bench with a book. He was lazily going through it, not expecting much out of it – it was more about the minor Astral known as Syldra, the numbers of which had served Leviathan and the seas, and had all perished in one fell swoop, with the bodies washing ashore all over Eos until the Tidemother herself confirmed that they had died out. The Mark of the Deep had died out with them, though a side-note in the book said that effectively no knowledge of what the Mark of the Deep meant remained at the time of this book being written.

Alacris stopped halfway through the book. There was more about the Mark of the Dreamer and Carbuncle itself. It was something he had not read before.

Carbuncles were minor Astrals under the command of Shiva – it made sense, now that he thought about it, since they were so closely related to death. There had been one Carbuncle for every group, and every time a new group or person joined the people collectively referred to as “Dreamers”, a new Carbuncle came into being. They remained with the group, keeping them company until the moment every person had finished their life and been returned to death, upon when the Carbuncle would sent them off to sleep again until their memories awoke again in their new bodies.

There were four ways to break a cycle.

First, every participant lost their hope and gave up, stating such to the Carbuncle. They would be returned to death infinitely, effectively granting them eternal sleep and assumedly keeping them from going to whatever afterlife there was on Eos.

Second, they fulfilled their desire. Every person that joined the cycle had a wish they wanted to see fulfilled, no matter how. Usually cycles did not last long, some even just one rebirth. The easiest wish was the protection of someone very important, once that person passed away peacefully the cycle was considered a success and they were granted leave to whatever afterlife Eos and Shiva offered. There were more complicated wishes, of course, but very few Dreamers actually talked about what drove them in the past if they even admitted being a Dreamer to begin with. Wishes were a very personal thing, after all.

Third, there was a chance of failing entirely. Wishes that went up in smoke – it was similar to losing all hope, but there was an actual condition of loss there as well, apparently. Not much was known about a loss of such capacity, but there was a high chance that these people would end up being granted eternal sleep as well. Though, assumedly, only more complicated wishes led to an actual failure option being a thing.

Fourth…

It was an addendum. A loose page that was put there as well, in a fine handwriting entirely unlike the writing of the person who had penned this book. It used strangely old terms, and straight up dead terms at times, but Alacris had enough time to figure out what it said if he just focused. He squinted at the page in concentration as time slowly trickled by, and thunder started roaring across Insomnia. Eventually he set the book down with knitted brows.

This was near impossible to understand.

“Fourth.”

That was San’s voice, and Alacris saw the man approach slowly.

“Though not a Dreamer in the fullest sense, members of the royal family of Lucis are granted the support of Carbuncle. They, after all, shoulder the fate of Eos as much as the Astrals did in the past. Thus they bear a mark, though it is not the Mark of the Dreamer, and they are not reborn like Dreamers are. But they can change their fate as long as Shiva and Carbuncle do not deem it a violation of the pact. What this means, effectively, is that the Lucis family often survives attacks and onslaughts, sometimes even near mortal injuries, when they should by any means not. But I digress. That mark, the Mark of Blood Royal. It can be burned out, just as the Mark of the Dreamer can be. People whose marks get burned out lose their right to die. They get their right of failing, their right of calling quits after losing hope, their right of fulfilling their wish revoked. They effectively get chewed up by the cycle and spit out back into their previous body, endlessly regenerating.”

Alacris heart had skipped so many beats at this point he considered it a miracle he even was alive at this point. His body was rapidly going numb from sheer shock as he stared at San.

“Curious. I thought someone would have tossed that page out already.”

“S-S...”

_That’s not his name_ , _that never was his name,_ Alacris thought and dropped the book. He stood up slowly, not breaking eye contact with the man, only to see cold contempt.

He fled the library, into the stormy evening – when had it turned evening? – and when he finally arrived in the apartment he slammed the door shut and leaned against it before sinking to the ground.

Dreamers were doomed to die young. They were locked in an entirely futile repeat of life and death. And he was one of them. What had been his name before? His names, even?

Alacris didn’t know. He would probably never know – and San knew. San knew and he most likely hated whoever Alacris had been before.

* * *

One night he jolted awake after his entire body seized up in his dreams. It felt like how people described what people succumbing to the Starscourge looked like. A strangling, suffocating feeling, that left no room for hope. Alacris buried himself further in his bed but did not sleep.

Another night he awoke screaming and rolled around on his bed until his brother barged into the room to see what was happening. Alacris felt like he had caught on fire, and he felt guilty about _something._ Something that his memory refused to spit up; just a very deep guilt and regret that bubbled up in the following nights over and over with the feeling of being aflame – and finally a name. Ignis. He concluded one dreary morning that he had been called Ignis at some point, and this Ignis had, ironically enough, perished in fire.

Then, once the guilt subsided, he actually found himself staring into a familiar face in his dreams. There were few portraits of King Emil Lucis Caelum II from before he was 30 at the very least, but it was easy enough to make the conclusion. The same scar across his lips, the same far-off and dreamy look in his eyes. The king addressed him as Ignatius, and Alacris awoke that morning feeling strangely nostalgic. Ignatius had been the king’s closest supporter, though it was said that the king’s best friend had been someone else entirely who was rarely mentioned in anything.

He was in a daze, and the faint voices were getting louder.

He heard himself screaming as he ran towards the body of a girl. Saw himself and three others sit in a burning room and watched the furniture, then themselves, burn with a dreadful finality as a crowd outside went from screaming insults to screaming in fear.

He was on a journey with two people; four people. He heard the sea splash against rock, watched the sun set in what he assumed was the city on the other end of the planet called Gralea as his entire body convulsed in these dreams.

Alacris was suffering more than he let on; he blamed his own body instead of the dreams. Whenever he looked into the mirrors he saw himself with bloodshot eyes staring back at him. His hair was longer than it had been in his entire life up to this point, longer than it had been in nineteen and three quarters of a year. It was longer than Ignis’, longer than the boy who turned into a Daemon’s, but not longer than Ignatius’.

He dragged himself to the library one last time. Sunlight was one more falling in through the windows, and he was fully aware that he looked like death. But he didn’t care.

There was one person he wanted to see, and he wasn’t even certain if the man was even there.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the man named San, had vanished as if he was a ghost. Had it not been for his curiosity-driven research, Alacris would have believed him to be nothing but a ghost, a figment of his imagination. But as San and his own research had shown him, there were two ways of how Ardyn could still be here, and how his face could have been filled with such contempt the day Alacris fled the library.

One, he was a Dreamer much like Alacris – Ignis – Ignatius – the Gralean Daemon – was.

Two, he had been somehow tossed out of the cycle and was now doomed to eternally be the same person, no matter how many times he died.

The same person whose blood ran black, whose body had absorbed countless Daemons, for all eternity.

Alacris left the library coughing as if fire and soot were clogging his already faulty lungs and stumbled through a street that he had seen King Emil plan once upon a lifetime. Perhaps burning in the Infernian’s hellfire was better than this earth on hell.

* * *

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“Please! He’s my only brother!”

Whose voices were that? They sounded distorted.

“Again, he’s already too far gone.” That voice sounded familiar. Painfully familiar. He wanted it to stop. “We’d do him more of a favour if we...”

“No! My par...”

The voices were deteriorating further and further. It sounded fuzzy. It all sounded so fuzzy.

He was so relieved when they suddenly fell silent. When everything fell silent.

Just one last thing intruded this perfect silence.

“Don’t think this is over, Ignis.”

* * *

“… _What the hell.”_

“ _I’m afraid pain and knowledge eventually corroded Alacris’ sanity. Worry not, I shan’t be begging for Carbuncle to let us go and grant us eternal sleep or anything of the like any time soon, Cor. I… I’m still shaken, as you can see, but otherwise quite well.”_

“… _Ignis, we’re dead.”_

“ _Dead, but waiting for another go-round. I dare say that we have a good chance of success as long as we do not lose heart like Alacris did towards the end, Cor. All we have to do is wait for Aranea and Prompto – I learned that this mark is curse and blessing at the same time, and I am fully willing to make the best of it.”_

“… _By the Draconian, sometimes your dedication to whatever you set your mind on scares me.”_

“ _Wasn’t that why I became a retainer in the first place?”_

“ _Exactly. But it’s still mildly concerning. Don’t run yourself and your lives out there to the ground just because you dedicate yourself to someone.”_


	5. Aranea - Fa's Task

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter content warnings: severed limbs

“ _Ah.”_

“ _Don’t ‘ah’ me, Ignis.”_

“ _I can see your barely concealed rage, Aranea, but I’ve been here for about five years – has it been five years? – and I came to the conclusion that you must’ve known what Zen was getting into, while the fool had no clue himself.”_

“ _You’ve only got yourself to blame, ‘cause Fa couldn’t have warned Zen without sounding like a complete lunatic. Still, you’re an ass.”_

“ _Oh? How so?”_

“… _Ignis ‘Zen’ Pacis, you got fucking torn into pieces by a myriad of Daemons and left me, Aranea ‘Fa’ Animosa, all alone in a place I didn’t even know.”_

“ _I… Yeah, I know.”_

“ _I seriously wish I wasn’t so angry at the entire world rather than just you – I would’ve slapped the taste out of your mouth and beaten you up. But Fa herself found out some things in these ten years between you dying and herself finally dying as well.”_

“ _Please, do tell that story.”_

“ _Oh boy, this one’s...”_

* * *

She awoke with a start when she was fourteen. Images filled her head and she remembered a great many things all at once, things that a Tenebraen like Fa should not have known. Machinations of Lucis, Lucian territory – she had never left Tenebrae – it was almost entirely too much for her to bear. But Fa was, by any means, unremarkable otherwise. She lived with her parents in a small village; it didn’t make sense that she would have been alive several times before.

Thus she kept quiet, enjoying the bits and pieces of a journey she remembered whenever the feeling of burning alive became overwhelming. She actually developed quite a fear of fire, but no one ever questioned it. It was, after all, just one simple oddity for a girl that was completely average. She quite enjoyed it until the day she turned 22.

In the last few years an increasingly aggressive mob of Daemons had been sighted throughout Tenebrae, and near countless hunters had attempted to and perished attacking it. The hunter that usually patrolled the area around Fa’s village had up and vanished one night, which had left the village in quite an uproar. It was eerily similar to the tale of a nearby village from years ago, where a hunter called Aster who had been just about as kind-hearted as Fa’s hunter had been had up and vanished one night. But, and that was what unsettled Fa, she knew what had happened to Aster – the man himself had told her, as they were sitting around a campfire waiting for something or someone to send them back to sleep. Her hunter was a healthy woman who showed no signs of having caught the Scourge yet, she had only been hunting for about four years before her mysterious disappearance.

A month after the woman vanished, a group of Lucians arrived in the village, led by a dashing young man. Many people immediately fell for his charm, but Fa knew that there was more about Zen.

He was Ignis, after all. The same Ignis who was always in her dreams and memories, who helped her and whom she helped.

She decided to befriend him. She, the most average out of the most average Tenebraens, tried to befriend this young man sent here by an advisor of the current Lucian King. Much to her surprise, it worked.

They had been sent here to investigate the mob of Daemons, which they attributed to something that people only called ‘the Accursed’ these days. Zen was a historian as well as the son of the advisor’s best friend, and therefore he had been sent along with a group of Lucian hunters to support Tenebrae at the request of the Oracle. He almost casually admitted that he was more curious about Tenebrae itself than this so-called Accursed at first, but now that he was here he finally understood why it was so important to take care of this hunter-eating monstrosity.

“Tenebrae’s beautiful.”

That was all he said, and Fa found herself strangely captured by how brutally honest this man was. Of course she knew that Ignis too had been an honest man, but Zen was almost too honest for his own good.

Many people ended up teasing her about her obvious crush on this man – Fa itched to tell them that there was nothing there other than an old bond flaring anew. But to an outsider it probably looked like she was madly in love with this Lucian historian. The bad thing was he did not remember, and eventually her passion for his mission seemed to win him over. Having Ignis, a man she had travelled countless miles with, fall in love with her was counterproductive.

But Zen did not remember anything yet. There was no flicker of knowledge, no half-hearted smiles as she shot him. Whenever she mentioned something that Ignis should have known were he aware of himself there was nothing. Zen was, by any means, Zen. Fa, on the other hand, was Fa, Aranea, and all these other girls and women she’d been in between.

It hurt more than she was willing to admit.

Eventually the Lucians decided it was time to move deeper into the country to find that mob. Zen looked more than sad to say goodbye to the village and Fa herself, and her heart ached. Ignis never looked like that, and seeing that on Zen’s face made her more upset than she would have liked to. Therefore she packed a sparse bag the night before they left, and then followed them. Interestingly enough her parents didn’t say anything other than ‘take care, dear’.

Travelling with the Lucians was different than she would have expected it to be. Zen had smiled at her with the brightest grin she’d ever seen, and the rest of the group had simply accepted her along as they trudged through the country. At the very least having Fa along meant that they could understand the native Tenebraen language as well as heavy dialects and accents when they spoke the language shared across all of Eos.

Zen tried teaching her Lucian, in return. It was different than what Aranea had spoken, and not that many lives of hers had been in Lucis, so Fa actually stumbled around like she was legitimately learning a new language altogether. Those evenings they spent sitting at the campfire together trying to teach each other Lucian and Tenebraen were familiar and made Fa happier than she had ever been in her village. It was as if she’d returned home after a long, long time. The only thing missing for that to be perfect would have been Zen remembering who he was, but he still showed no sign of recognising her. All he ever pointed out with a laugh was that the mark on her arm – the Mark of the Dreamer, as she now knew – looked an awful lot like the birthmark on his shoulder. She almost said that she knew that Cor’s was on the other arm, and Prompto’s on his chest, but she bit her tongue and smiled. Instead she tossed out some throwaway remark about that being a funny coincidence that might mean something.

He didn’t get the joke. She didn’t mind.

It was enough for her to just have him by her side, and she leaned against his shoulder as they looked up at the stars.

The Mark of the Dreamer meant that until they either fulfilled their desires or until they gave up their lives would be filled with agony. Fa had always suspected that something terrible would happen eventually, from the moment she awoke with her memory more or less intact. But what had happened was like something was peeling her and then stabbing her insides over and over.

They had found the mob of Daemons eventually. Malice oozed out from the pack as it moved, and it left an actually visible path of destruction in its wake. Blooming season came, and Zen and his companions had pinpointed the location of that thing.

They had moved with the confidence of a million suns, with him smiling at her and promising that once this was over he would take her to Insomnia with him and show her the city in all its glory. She nodded with a slightly panicked smile – Insomnia held many bad memories for her, after all. Thus, instead of waiting for them to come back, she bolted after them into the night. She couldn’t fight, she had never been properly taught how to fight. Fa had never desired to be a hunter, after all. The hunter in the village and Zen had taught her basics, of course, and she was quite certain in case she ever got her hands on a spear she would vaguely remember how to use it thanks to Aranea’s memories, but she was effectively unarmed at this moment and running after a group of armed men and women taking on a group of Daemons.

What she arrived to was a slaughter. All these people she’d spent about a year getting to know were being ripped into pieces. There was blood everywhere and all Fa could do was stand there perfectly straight, like a deer in the headlights. That wasn’t just a mass of Daemons, that was hell itself. All these creatures were writhing about screeching, drowning out the shouts of the group and Zen… and Zen…

He turned around and looked at her for a moment, and she thought that at least he could make it out alive.

When his head dropped on the ground Fa still couldn’t move, until someone grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away. She blacked out after that.

* * *

When she opened her eyes the first thing she did was blink. The air smelled weird, even for Blooming season, but the second she saw a red splatter on a tree it all came back to her.

Before she could let out the scream of terror that was bubbling up in her chest, however, someone covered her mouth.

“Not a sound, Aranea, or it’ll be the last thing you do.”

The person removed their hand, and Fa took a deep, shaky breath.

“… Ardyn.”

The man looked similar to what she remembered him looking like. His hair was longer, the shadows under his eyes deeper, and he was looking at her with tired but furious eyes.

“I should have expected you and Ignis being involved in that mess. You hunted ‘the Accursed’, I presume?”

Fa nodded slowly and tried not to look at the blood all over the place or the man’s face.

“Well. You found the Accursed, Aranea.”

“…?!”

“That mob of Daemons? Something else entirely. ‘The Accursed’ is the name they eventually stamped on me.”

She remained silent but turned to look at this man. There were so many questions she would have liked to ask, but decided to not ask any of these in favour of one other.

“Why did you… save me? You could have… should have… let me get torn into pieces together with Zen… I mean, Ignis.”

He sneered. “Sometimes living is worse than dying, especially when the person in question would just come back anyway.”

She nodded – she understood. Even though it was applied to her, she fully understood that. Many, countless even, people who lost someone to the Scourge back in the day had lived in constant regret. Sometimes it drove them mad, and Aranea had seen quite a few of these people go berserk. They had tried attacking the prince who was just trying to help, and the retainers had either made certain no harm came to Ardyn, or taken care of the person entirely and disposed of them. That was the only aspect of the job Aranea had hated.

Fa sighed and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again she was on her own, in the middle of an unknown forest that was covered in dry blood and smelled of Daemons and rotting meat. How long had she been out? Probably a day.

A strange laugh bubbled up in her chest, and she started laughing. The laugh turned into a wail as she sat there on her knees and dragged her fingers across her face. She was completely on her own, and all these Lucians she had travelled with had been torn into shreds. All that blood was theirs. And the Daemons that had so mercilessly slaughtered them had gotten away.

She dragged herself to her feet and stumbled away from the clearing filled with blood. Someone else could just come across that mess and message Lucis and the king that his envoy had been reduced to blood chunks of flesh and ruined dreams. Fa didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Her head filled with static as she walked off.

Ardyn was right – living through this was more punishment than dying alongside all these people she had gotten to know. It was a madman’s sentence, and she started laughing again. He hadn’t actively raised his hands against Prompto, Cor and Ignis in the past lives they came across him. He had certainly been condescending when they perished, of course, but he had never driven the knife in himself. The first time she came across him, and he had effectively chopped off her leg and let her run the mile back home.

Except Fa didn’t know where home was. She’d lost her sense of direction and just went ahead. The way was forward, and as long as she moved away from that clearing there was no way she was going to run into that swirling vortex of malice again. There was no way she’d ever have to see someone’s head lopped off again, and hopefully no severed limbs in general.

She stopped after about an hour of dragging herself along and laughing to double over and throw up. She hadn’t eaten in at least two days at this point – she’d refused a meal when the group had set out to take care of the Daemons, and she’d spent over a day unconscious now.

Her entire body numbed, and she carried on.

* * *

There were so many hunters in Tenebrae. All these people who forsook home and family for a shred of glory.

Fa watched hunters do their jobs with glazed over eyes. From Prompto she’d heard the fate that awaited these people, heard how agonising turning into a Daemon had been for Aster. At some point her lonely travels had made her nocturnal like a hunter, and the fact she carried a single sword with her tricked people into thinking she was a travelling huntress of some sort. There were many of these, most of them hunting the mob.

Eventually, about half a year after losing Zen, she made a decision.

She would become a hunter, yes. But not a traditional Tenebraen hunter, like Aster had been. No, she would hunt fellow hunters who were about to turn, to grant them a measure of peace instead of turning into a Daemon. Zen would have hated it, and Fa hated it. But she herself found some peace when the hunters were dead and free to not turn into Daemons.

It was cold, perhaps, but Prompto had told her how terrifying it had been to slowly succumb to the Scourge. She had seen people going mad from pain, and mad from losing someone to the Scourge. At the very least that’s what she liked to believe. Fa hunted hunters. It was simple as that.

After another half a year, she had learned more about Tenebraen hunters than she had ever wanted to. The black blood, the wild eyes… these people were often nearly about to turn when she arrived like some sort of monster sent by the Astrals.

Perhaps she was some sort of leftover minor Astral at this point – although they had all since died out, there had been a minor Astral called Odin which had essentially done the same thing. It had hunted, much as Syldra had watched over people crossing the sea, and how Carbuncle took care of the dead and dreaming.

More than once she put her own sword on her throat, often when it was stained with the black blood of a hunter. It would have been so very easy to send herself back to that accursed campfire where she would wait for Prompto and Cor together with Ignis, wait until they would be sent back to sleep and would awake in whatever unfortunate person they would become after that. So very, very easy.

She never did it. Fa didn’t have the strength to do it, not after her lives in the past had always been so short compared to Aranea’s, so full of unnecessary tragedy.

Eventually, once she got near the capital, she reached her breaking point. There were no hunters here thanks to the usual presence of the Oracle, and she had no idea why she even was here to begin with. She once more sat down sobbing and dragging her fingernails across her face, like she did so many times.

At least she did so until she heard the rustle of the undergrowth behind her. Fa shot to her feet and tried to grab her sword, but instead fumbled about stupidly and dropped the sword. It was the middle of the night, and that had to be a Daemon. She was done for, she was absolutely done for and would get torn into pieces like everyone else.

Instead of a Daemon a woman about her age emerged, however. Fa stared at this person in confusion.

“Ah, a hunter. Thank goodness.” Her smile was so bright it almost hurt Fa. “Is there a chance you know where we are?”

“… Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Ah…”

“How’d you get lost in the woods anyway? A huntress has an excuse but you...” The lie came over her lips so easily, but her observation was genuine. That woman looked soft and gentle, and wore clean clothes. In fact they looked like garbs worn for Blooming season ceremonies in the heart of the country. Which made sense, because Blooming season was beginning and they were in the heart of the country.

“Ha. You got me there, fair lady hunter. I was simply going for a walk, but then I heard someone cry in the woods and got lost on my way there.”

Fa’s heart skipped a beat. “You walk into the woods in the dead of night simply because you heard someone _cry?_ That’s bold.”

“Hee hee.”

“… Well, I mean… we can both be lost together for the rest of the night, we’ll eventually find civilisation again and I have my sword if worst comes to worst.”

“Oh, that would be much appreciated! Thank you…?”

“Fa.”

Again with the bright smile in the middle of the night. “Fa! What a pleasant name. I am Concordia.”

They spent several days trying to find their way back, but Concordia simply smiled all the troubles they got into away. After being alone for so long Fa had nearly forgotten how nice it was to have someone at her side, especially when the person was as optimistic and gentle as the woman in white. One night they had to climb a tree to avoid a Daemon, and while Fa was nervous and trying to make certain these Daemons would never climb this tree, Concordia instead pointed out how bright these stars were on the night that Blooming season officially began in the heart of the country. Instead of terrified Fa found herself relaxing again as if she was with Zen and the group again.

The next day they finally found someone else – a panicked guard of the Oracle.

“Lady Concordia! There you are! You had left so suddenly--”

“It is alright. This nice lady helped me.”

Fa shrugged and leaned forwards a little to whisper in Concordia’s ears. “The hell’s up with the Oracle guard and calling you Lady?”

“Oh!” She looked so surprised. “I forgot to tell you. I am Concordia Nox Fleuret, daughter of the Oracle.”

Fa swore the earth turned upside down in that very moment.

Getting introduced to the Oracle by her daughter was awkward, to say the very least. Fa’s clothes were damaged and dirty, she was thin and hadn’t bathed in several days. But Concordia had insisted that Fa had to come with her for Blooming season and that Concordia owed the huntress her life. She had come quite a long way since she was an unremarkable village girl with the Mark of the Dreamer.

It was what Concordia suggested next that threw Fa off-guard.

“Mother, I want this woman to become my new guard.”

“B-Beg pardon, Milady?” She’d started calling Concordia that during Blooming season and for all the festivities, even if Concordia insisted that she had to stop that once official people were no longer in sight.

“I told you during Blooming season that my last guard… succumbed to the Scourge. Mother insisted I look for a new person to stay at my side at any given time – and I’ve made my decision.”

The Oracle nodded, and Fa felt her stomach drop. She’d murdered hunters in cold blood thinking of it as some sort of justice, and now the next Oracle wanted her to protect her? That was ridiculous.

Somehow she couldn’t find it in her to refuse the position, however. There was something about Concordia that drew her in.

* * *

Time passed slowly now. It had been three years since she’d come across the next Oracle in the woods, and she had since officially been taught how to read and write, how to behave around officials. Fa did her best with that, and eventually Concordia’s bright smile took over the dreams of fire and dreams of a bloodstained clearing. She was rather certain that she looked at the other woman like Zen had looked at her, but every time Concordia caught that look she smiled back.

Fa surprised several officials with her ability to speak Lucian. When asked how and why she had learned that, Fa’s smile faltered. She just claimed that her father had been Lucian and had taught her bits and pieces.

It was later that day, in the evening even, when Concordia pulled her onto her bed.

“So, what’s the truth? Your father wasn’t Lucian, was he?”

The woman could read her like a book, and Fa sighed while running a hand through Concordia’s light brown hair. “He wasn’t. Before I became a hunter and met you, I travelled with a group of Lucians. They all… died… but one of them taught me Lucian. I taught him Tenebraen in return. It ended terribly, mind, but… without all of that happening I would’ve never ended up here.”

Concordia knew. All Oracles knew that hunters eventually succumbed to the Scourge and that there was no point in healing them over and over again. Fa had told Concordia what she had done to hunters who were about to turn with tears streaming down her face after a year, but all the woman had done was cup Fa’s face and had wiped away her tears.

Once more Concordia simply cupped Fa’s face and planted a small kiss on her lips.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry it had to end like this – but I am truly grateful that you’re here now, with me.”

“Silly, I’m glad I’m here as well.”

Of course there was no chance for this to continue for overlong – Concordia was betrothed, promised to another man like every Oracle before her. Fa had met the man once or twice, and he was nice enough. But Concordia considered him nothing more than a good friend. It was an eerie echo of what had happened between Fa and Zen, and when she pointed that out the other woman laughed.

“Maybe it’s fate.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Concordia found that out on the seventh year, and stared at the arm Fa had usually kept bandaged up. Normally she insisted that the bandage was kept there at any time, claiming it was an ugly scar from childhood and that she was used to having it covered up. But it had rained and she had stumbled over a root and fallen in a muddy puddle, and before she could tell Concordia that she was going to change the bandage on her own the woman had removed it. The shocked silence that followed made Fa wish she had drawn her sword over her throat all those times she had been moments away from doing so. But instead of anything else, Concordia’s smile was back once more, albeit a little confused.

“The Mark of the Dreamer…?”

“… Yes.”

“I see… I see. Fa, there’s… meet me in my quarters later.”

That was the single most ominous thing that Concordia had ever said, and Fa swallowed.

Instead of something terrible happening, all she saw was the other woman sitting on her bed as usual. This time, however, with a copy of the Cosmogony in front of her.

“Fa… was that your first name?”

“Aranea.”

“...”

“Just call me Fa.”

“Okay.”

She took a deep breath and closed the Cosmogony. “As you know… my mother’s dying. She has about a month left at this point. Which means, in two months’ time I will have to start the procedure for taking over as Oracle… and marry.”

“Mhm. I had figured.”

Concordia’s expression changed from solemn and composed to very upset, and those wide blue eyes of hers hurt Fa more than seeing Zen getting torn into pieces. “I don’t want to marry him. I don’t feel that way for him, I can’t even pretend I do.”

“You’ll find a way, Dia, you always do. You found a way to forgive me for my sins, you can find a way to at least make it look like you’re okay with that.”

The future Oracle swallowed and nodded.

“That’s not why you called me here, though, Dia.”

A deep breath. “Yes. There’s something else. It’s about the Mark of the Dreamer… and the Accursed.”

* * *

The minor Astrals died out one by one. The Sylphs vanished from the forests. Syldras no longer took care of seamen. Odins no longer made certain that the law was followed. Phoenix vanished from the skies and summers became scorching hot across most of Eos as if the planet was grieving for the spirit of summer.

Only one never went extinct, albeit their numbers greatly diminished. The only minor Astral under Bahamut, Carbuncle.

It was the Scourge that wiped them out, ironically enough. All but Carbuncle, who traversed between the borders of life and death at all given times, vanished eventually. And Carbuncle was left all on its own, the only minor Astral left being one of its kin. And thus Bahamut gave them a mission.

Mortal wishes could affect the world more than one could imagine. The effect could win over wars, or tip the scales in favour of a losing faction. Carbuncle was given a new existence; a guide and guardian of these who dreamed beyond death, of those those who defied the fate that awaited them as they begged for another chance. Thus were the Dreamers and the Guide born, and Carbuncle did as it was told.

All royals across all of Eos eventually came to bear a mark similar to that of the Dreamer. It wasn’t the Mark of the Dreamer, but it meant that if their job on earth was not yet done they were allowed to survive what should otherwise kill them. That was how Ardyn survived despite how advanced his case of Starscourge was – Carbuncle did its job and kept the prince alive and human enough until the Astrals deemed his purpose on earth over and released him from the mortal coil.

Except they never did. Carbuncle found itself kind of helplessly watching as the prince slowly slipped off the edge of madness. And thus it decided to call for help the only way it knew how – it contacted his brother. It backfired, it backfired so terribly that Carbuncle could only watch that scene unfold in silent terror.

It allowed the retainers that burned to become Dreamers and burned out the Mark of Blood Royal on Ardyn in a faint hope that it would serve the prince at long last the death he deserved.

He came back.

He broke out of the cycle, somehow, through rage and rage alone. He believed every single person had abandoned him. The Astrals had cast him out, his brother had ordered his death after his retainers had sold him out.

With that mad mantra he set out, making certain that every person with the Mark of the Dreamer would slowly but surely lose hope.

* * *

Fa stared at Concordia, who looked very tired all of a sudden. It had been ten years since Zen first arrived in the village and Fa had started to feebly hope that he would remember one day. Nine years since they set out to find the mob. Eight years since he died, and seven since she finally met Concordia and her life changed for the better.

“My mother… she is going to leave next week. She will find the Accursed, and lock him away on Angelgard. Hopefully long enough for the King of Light to be born and arrive and take care of this mess the Astrals caused.”

Fa stared at her beloved with her mouth hanging slightly open. Concordia was sitting there with her head hanging and tears rolling down her face.

“Fa… Fa, I… You need to tell your fellow retainers that in case my mother fails or he manages to break out of the prison on Angelgard somehow… You four will be the only ones who know about this. You four are the only ones who know what truly happened – because I will take this knowledge to my grave. It caused me no end of grief, it caused my mother no end of grief, it nearly drove my grandmother insane before her healing powers overtook her and she turned into a Daemon. Oracles and hunters share the same fate… the same fate. We turn into Daemons.”

She nodded slowly and sat down on the bed in front of Concordia. “I will tell the other three.” She leaned forwards and pulled the crying Oracle-to-be into her arms.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologising for, D--”

Her heart skipped a beat before she registered the pain.

“I love you, Fa… I love you, but… An Oracle is… we have to… we are obligated to send people with the... Mark of the Dreamer… back after giving them information to share with their fellow Dreamers…”

A knife. The knife Concordia always carried with her. The one Fa helped her choose when her mother had insisted on her daughter carrying at least a small weapon with her at any given time.

* * *

“ _I’m not angry at you, Ignis. What you called… barely concealed rage was… shock, I suppose.”_

“ _Aranea...”_

“ _I shared what she told me. Now we wait, and hope that Angelgard remains a safe prison until the King of Light arrives.”_

“ _Yes. But, one question Aranea.”_

“ _What?”_

“ _Were you at least happy between you becoming an Oracle guard and dying?”_

“ _I was. I was so… very happy. Happier than you can imagine me being."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap for the first set! up next is an interlude of sorts, and then it's the next set.  
> this chapter is. a lot longer than i expected it to be when i got rid of about 2.5k words and started it from scratch about 4 hours ago...?


	6. And then there was one

_He was staring down gods. He couldn’t even begin to imagine that this was what kings did in the past, what his father should be doing – what his brother had done._

_Still, he bowed his head in respect after a few heartbeats – he’d been taught manners, after all – and waited until these celestial beings decided to grace him with an acknowledgement. It took them rather long; something was clearly troubling them. The animated discussion they were having while ignoring the second Lucian prince was in a language that only the Astrals spoke._

_Too bad that certain mortals understood the language they speak. Too bad Izunia understood clearly that they were discussing something about his brother getting out of hand, that he had effectively lost his humanity at this point. For a moment his heartbeat stopped; ever since he’d shown the ability to purge even the Starscourge Izunia’s mother had started to turn into a raving harpy going on about how the older prince would eventually turn into one of these abominations that carried the Scourge as well. Were the mad claims by an even madder second wife more than just a madwoman’s nonsense after all?_

_He held his position, head bowed, eyes half closed, but his blood was turning colder where he stood, and it was not Shiva’s fault. His father was dying and had effectively begged him to get Ardyn home before the time was up. That was all Izunia was here for – to beg for time. Beg the Glacian and perhaps the Draconian to get the heavy weight of death off his father’s chest at least until the elder son returned home from the mission these very beings sent him on._

_It was a cold hand that eventually forced him to look up. The Glacian, her eyes ever so soft, looked at him with something that could only be described as_ pity _before returning to her seat amongst the five. The sixth was, as per usual, missing. Not that Izunia minded; according to scripture and records of past time the Infernian had been a pain to deal with._

“We know why you are here.”

“ _That makes things much easier. I implore y--”_

“We cannot. We should not.”

_He stared as the Glacian shook her head. “You have to!”_

_That look they exchanged and the earlier discussion they had were starting to unsettle him._

_Izunia admitted he’d never really been nice to Ardyn since the incident that revealed his ability to heal. As children they had been close as if they had the same mother, and outside of when Izunia’s mother got weirdly pushy and decided to pit one child against another in a direct comparison they had always gotten along. At least until the day Izunia nearly died from falling out of a tree with his sword in his hands – Ardyn had healed him up before the alarmed guard had even returned with a mender and several servants in tow. There was not even a scar on his body to prove how he had nearly bled out that day, and ever since his mother had near jealously made certain the two princes had as little contact as possible._

_Where Ardyn was taught how to work with the people and how to win their favour, Izunia was taught how to be as calculating as possible, and therefore came off as cold to most people._

_Thus he was rather certain he already knew what was going to happen next, but somewhere underneath that cold fear and the constant terror of losing his father resided that part of him that just wanted to get along with his brother despite everything._

_His hopes were dashed near immediately._

“Child of Lucis. The King will die, but his choice… his choice has been touched by the dark. You will make certain that no darkness makes it way on the throne; dispose of the threat ere the threat gains more power.”

“ _You have got to be kidding me.”_

* * *

He was pacing. It wasn’t unusual for him; a bad habit he picked up from his mother during his late teens. Still, even after being led back to the mortal coil he was effectively as clueless as before, and his father was still dying and had not been granted an extension of time. His brother, on the other hand, had been branded something akin to a traitor and heretic at best, and a grave offense to all of Eos at worst.

_Accursed_ , they had whispered. The whisper followed him as he paced the room while his retainers watched uneasily.

It was easy enough to make the council believe him. They were stout followers of religious teachings regarding several Astrals – cults, perhaps – and would immediately accept that the prince, while begging for his beloved father’s life, had been given a mission to purge a usurper from the family tree. It would be significantly harder to convince the general mass of servants.

It would be nigh _impossible_ to make certain that the populace of the kingdom understood.

The people loved Ardyn. He was a saviour cherished by everyone, the man who could purge the darkness while wearing his soft smile.

Not to mention his trio of retainers. These three would be the single biggest roadblock in what the Astrals had requested he do. There were no men or women who were even remotely a match for them in actual combat; Aranea on her own could possibly take out most, if not all, members of the council in less than three minutes, Izunia included.

He wheezed.

Given how far away Ardyn still was, he had some time. He still had some… time…

He had time. Time, time, time.

He wasn’t dragging the still twitching corpse of his brother out of Insomnia. There wasn’t the whisper of Bahamut in the back of his head telling him it wasn’t enough. He’d just… use the time… he had...

* * *

Time was running out. He’d learned quite a few things as healer, naturally, and one of them was self-regeneration. He could knit any wounds closed as long as he was not past the edge of fatal blood loss, and even through the haze he was in he felt his wounds closing. It wasn’t that unusual, there had been quite a few attempts on his life while he was on the road, not to mention the time he had nearly gotten himself cleaved in half by a Spiracorn while messing around with the teleportation powers that came with being attuned to the crystal.

Except he was well beyond fatal blood loss at this point. By any means, he should have been dead. It wasn’t unusual for royals to blank out and awaken a bit later after an instance where they should have died. Ardyn himself had been in quite a few of these situations outside of his healing powers, and every time had he been greeted by one of the remaining Carbuncles. Normally they saw him off with a swish of the tail and a flick of the ears, perhaps even an amused twitch of whiskers. But this time there was nothing, no one.

All he felt was the darkness around him, swirling, writhing. It was sentient, it spoke with his voice, and it drove him near mad as the seconds kept loudly ticking by.

Eventually he forced his eyes open.

It was dark here as well, but nearly immediately his eyes adjusted to the dark. It was a side-effect of the Starscourge, one of the earliest symptoms. One he’d carried with him for ages, and therefore he was used to it.

The entire room reeked of blood, but Ardyn very quickly realised he had been dragged into a tomb. Perhaps it was the Tomb of the Conqueror, or the Tomb of the Wise. Those two were the closest to Insomnia, after all. He wasn’t actually sure how much time had actually passed in that dark void he had been in, and his head throbbed.

The last thing he remembered was blinding light of him summoning the entire Armiger, and every single one of these crystalline blue weapons turning red in that very moment. All those faces… all that fire…

With a grunt he pulled himself up on one of the statues lining the walls of the tomb. His leg near uselessly dangled on his side, and it still hurt despite the fact any damage to his skin and muscles and bones had mended by now. He knew he was dead by any means, but that meant he could just walk into the castle and demand Izunia explain himself. Before that, he thought he should try seeking out his retainers. The men and the woman who had left him to face all of these claims on his own by even telling the council about it in the first place. How they had managed that was all he wanted to know.

_Kill them like they killed you._

He brushed a hand over the statue and left nothing but a black smear on it. Normally he would have frowned at the colour, but it was perfect for now. He was just as infected as all these people he had healed. Perhaps that would teach them a lesson.

The next settlement was small, and people mistook him for a hunter covered in the blood of a Daemon.

Normally they should have recognised him as prince.

He went on after this, in new clothes, with his hair pulled into a ponytail – when had it gotten that long? He simply followed paths he knew, paths he had travelled with--

Shortly before Insomnia he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Quite a few people were apparently passing over into Insomnia that day, and one particular group was being followed by rather shady people. It wasn’t all that unusual, but… when he looked at two of the three, time seemingly came to a halt.

That had to be Cor and Ignis; with Cor miraculously having aged backwards and with Ignis somehow having grown and with a different eye colour. The young man they were with he didn’t know, but the intense blue eyes of his reminded him uncomfortably of Izunia.

_Rip them into shreds! You know you want to, after all that happened to you!_

He was grinding his teeth by the time these three left, still followed by that group. It would have been so easy to take all three of them out in one swoop and leave now that his body was properly pumping blood through his veins again, but he did not want to give in to the malicious whisper in the back of his head. Doing so would be admitting defeat to the Scourge, and despite all he remained a steadfast believer that those who fought could win against it.

He should have known better.

By the time he actually learned of what had truly happened, the third king of the Caelum line took the throne. Ardyn nearly threw up laughing after hearing that last name – it had been stolen from him, since all that had gotten to the outside of the castle was that the Caelum-side child and not the Quasso-side child had been named the previous king’s successor. Naturally Izunia would snag that name to perfect his little charade; but according to what Ardyn had heard this far away from Insomnia was that the first king died a horrible death. The second king did as well; his nephew that he had never gotten to know.

_Brat deserved it. Too bad it wasn’t you who delivered the blow._

It was about that time that he came across people that looked an eerie lot like his three retainers, and one of Izunia’s. Often barely more than children, their looks seemed to haunt him like the Daemons did.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum fled Lucis, the land of his birth.

Tenebrae was a peaceful land, by any means, and perfect to hide away. Perhaps even the Daemons there would accept him as one of them.

Naturally they didn’t, and the moment he recognised his saviour his heart stopped. That was one of the children that had been under Izunia’s care, the blonde with the bright eyes and the even brighter smile. Said smile looked rather melancholic and sad at this point, and there was no way he should have been so young. Were they trapped somehow like Ardyn was?

One day, ‘Ace’ saw the brand. And he understood at once what that meant.

Carbuncle was taking care of them, just as Carbuncle had left Ardyn in the dark. He was furious – rightfully furious – and sent the retainer off with a curse. It were the words uttered by Aster – Prompto – that unsettled Ardyn. They had already burned in hellfire?

Near automatically his aimless wandering had a goal, and the goal was Insomnia once more. He passed through villages and settlements ravaged by the Scourge, and those completely unharmed by it. Not a single one of these ever mentioned a healer. It was as if he had been erased completely, and it only made his steps carry on with even more fury.

Eventually he reached his goal, and demanded a conference with the queen. Izunia’s spawn, though the young queen looked nothing like the traitorous brother. For a second he thought she would have no idea who he was, but her eyes narrowed slightly after a few moments.

_Kill her before she can call for support._

Aura merely sat on her throne – _on your throne, idiot, rip her into pieces and take back what’s yours –_ and watched the supposedly dead relative move about. She refrained from saying anything, and there was something about the way she held herself that derailed Ardyn’s train of thought. Finally he managed to squeeze out one question, just one.

“Aranea, Ignis and Cor?”

“Burned to death on the day of your execution, together with another retainer and several other servants.”

_Just as the traitors deserved. And since they’re Dreamers now you can let them live through hell over and over again._

He asked her if she considered it a mistake to let him go, but all she did was glare at him from her throne, on which she looked pathetically small.

“There is no use killing what cannot die, Accursed.”

Accursed. That was the name they had given him by now; instead of saviour as they had called him before that. It stung, and he holed up somewhere in the city. Should the queen and her son, and after that her son’s daughter and that woman’s son, shiver knowing that the man who should have been on the throne years ago was in the city. At about the time he decided he had enough of it, he managed to run into Ignis.

A small, very young Ignis, who looked downright miserable and like he was about to keel over dead. It was a stark contrast to the man he had seen on his way to Insomnia, and to the man he had known back then, and ‘San’ decided it was time to be morbidly curious. By any means, Ignis seemed to be aware of what was happening to him, but he had apparently not remembered his life yet. In the last few years Ardyn had enrolled in several studies, if only to kill time. The fact that this incarnation of Ignis seemed interested in something that Ardyn had worked on was just the perfect cherry on top of the mountain of irony. Indeed, by the time Ignis remembered Ardyn had nearly gotten sick of the game, of these old feelings of camaraderie that resurfaced every now and then. Just a week later a young man called for someone to help him with his sick brother, and the former healer knew immediately that his former retainer was about to pass back into the aether.

He sent him off with a warning.

_Should have made him suffer longer._

Perhaps, he agreed with the voices for once, but there was no point to antagonise them because they would be back without memories before long. Perhaps they would even be there when the person chosen by the gods finally came to be.

* * *

An unlikely alliance was what he would have called it. There were many people in Tenebrae who suffered under the Scourge despite being in the Oracle’s homeland. One such person was a huntress with a mace that nearly bashed in his head one night – but she was a clever woman and immediately figured out that something about this stranger was plain off. While Ardyn hated having baggage, especially on clueless wandering about following his gut, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t somewhat enjoy the company for once.

_If you use the dark as cover and just gnaw off her leg, nobody would ever know._

He nearly did it, this time.

She laughed it off, saying that ‘getting screwy in the head was what Scourgers did’. Ardyn had no idea how she just accepted the fact that he had pulled a weapon and tried to remove her entire leg just like that, although she did confiscate his weapons after that. She couldn’t have known that he still had the Armiger, though summoning it nowadays was like trying to pull off his own nails – it was torture.

The woman succumbed to the Scourge about a month after he met her, and this time Ardyn couldn’t bring himself to watch the turn as he had done with Prompto Gemmae when he had been called Aster and was a Tenebraen hunter.

Just a few days later, as he wandered about, he found what people called ‘the Accursed’ in Tenebrae. It was a wild mass of Daemons, some of them even just half-turned, several missing limbs, and all of them effectively oozing malice.

_You could join them and just let yourself get carried away._

He tried not to pay attention to the voice as he had all his life, but his resolve was wavering at long last. He followed the strange writhing mass until a group of hunters tried challenging it.

Ardyn would have not paid any attention to the slaughter that was taking place right before him had it not been for one person arriving late to the scene. He’d already spied someone looking an awful lot like Ignis, but the fact that Aranea rushed in and froze in terror nearly drove him to pull a weapon and finish the woman before she could get torn into pieces. When she fainted, however, he simply pulled her away and made certain the Daemons would not follow them.

_Let her wake up and drive a dagger into her and let her agonisingly bleed out._

Instead he chose to let her live; a sentence worse than any death the Daemons could have done. She would have to live with the fact she survived a bloodbath, would live through Ignis’ and her friends’ deaths for all eternity until the cycle pulled her back in.

_She deserved worse. Coward._

* * *

It was a clear night with the stars glittering above, and a former Lucian prince was staring down a Tenebraen Oracle. The woman wasn’t even old; she must’ve been around Cor’s age when everything had gone to hell. Her resolve was admirable, however, and Ardyn merely stared at her as she started her story.

An Oracle was doomed to turn into a Daemon, no matter how long it took them to actually turn. They could heal, but their powers came with a price – and there was no way to avoid the loss of humanity. She called Ardyn’s ability to retain a human form a blessing in disguise, no matter that it came with the curse of immortality.

_Give her death then if she so desires it._

Instead he found himself bewitched by the Oracle’s words like a run-of-the-mill Daemon slinking about the dark – effectively the story of her life, the story of the lives of other Oracles before her. The suffering, how the body got weaker and weaker, how the voices started screeching incoherently at these women. It was eerily similar to what had happened to Ardyn, except that the voices that followed him around were clear, loud, and snarling even as he listened to the Oracle.

The spell seemingly broke when the woman got on her knees and folded her hands.

“I have neither the strength nor the life left in me to ease your suffering. I know the fate that awaits you, the fate that the gods pushed upon your shoulders, and I know that you will be wandering the world timelessly until that person guided by those who have abandoned you arrives. I cannot offer succour, but I can offer a time of rest until the Chosen King or Queen arrives.”

Sleep sounded tempting.

_Cleave her in half and go find her daughter! Kill the brat too!_

“I...”

_Rip off her head! Break every single bone inside her body!_

“…”

_Strangle her with her own hair, it’s way too long! It’s such an obvious weak point! Prove it! Prove it!_ _**C o w a r d!** _

He slowly nodded at the Oracle. He would accept, though he was rather certain that Angelgard would not keep him for long. This woman’s offer was so heartfelt he couldn’t help but take that hand.

* * *

_He’d stared down the gods before. At least the other members of the Hexathon. They had commented on how ridiculous a small mortal glaring at them like he was trying to scare them was, but he did not once change his approach. They were gods, yes, but they had also sent him on a mission. That should have given him something like permission to glare at them._

_Ifrit on the other hand certainly was glaring back, and even though he clearly knew he was still on Angelgard Ardyn found himself staring up at the Infernian with a mixture of relief and anger. If this was truly the Infernian, that meant he could end this nonsense game the other five and Carbuncle were playing._

_He’d tried starving himself, dehydrating himself, then tried to swim off the island once. After the Oracle started turning he put her out of her misery – and ended up all alone on the island, unable to sleep. How much time had truly passed? Perhaps it had only been a year, perhaps it had been a hundred. He wasn’t going to ask Ifrit how much time had passed, however, and instead chose an ironic bow._

“ _How nice of you to decide being my company. ‘Tis a pleasure to meet you, Infernian.”_

_Perhaps he would have been more shocked by the voice being nearly identical to the voices of the Daemons that followed him around if he hadn’t started having some suspicions on what was truly going on. Indeed, that smile after the similarly ironic greeting was answer enough to confirm all fears he’d managed to build up over the years and let them go all at once._

_He was still a plaything of the divine, although allegiances had shifted. Instead of going against the planet’s Scourge he was now working alongside it._

_It was more of a relief than anything else, and he sat down on the ground and crossed his legs._

“Should you truly spend your time here?”

“ _Is there a point in doing anything? Eventually you and yours will send someone against me anyway, and that will be the end of that. Fairy tale book closes with the evil defeated and the kingdom happy.”_

_The story he was told made his entire body turn to ice._

_He fled Angelgard in earnest this time, leaving it behind in terror. He would go back to Lucis this time._

_Back to Lucian soil..._

_It was just a village, but the moment he got too close to it all its residents turned to look at him. It was eerie and unsettling, and he still had not entirely recovered from being told what the Chosen One’s task would be to take down the inevitably encroaching night without end. He had simply been chosen as symptom of the Scourge, one that would fester and grow until that time came; disowned by time and the planet and its graceless gods._

_The entire village was silent and watched him move with hungry, silent eyes._

_All these people were afflicted by the Starscourge, and about to turn._

_Ardyn Lucis Caelum stared into the eyes of the doomed, and all he got in return were hungry gazes – he was, by any means, human._

_When the first villager made their move on the apparently human stranger, Ardyn replied immediately with a fire spell. He had no intention of setting an entire village ablaze, but there was no time to try healing them – he was rather certain he had lost that skill over the years anyway – and he would prefer not to get torn into pieces._

_He’d only seen them pass a nearby settlement a few days ago, but when the three of them rushed in and started attacking villagers as if they were still duty-bound by an oath to him, Ardyn just heard the longest, loudest screech the Daemons had ever made. It made his head throb._

_Red, crystalline shards broke into his vision._

_The same moment that happened the three of them turned to look at him first, then at each other. They apparently came to a conclusion in that moment, seeing as they then raised their weapons against him. He would have laughed, truly, but there was nothing to laugh about any longer._

_He sent the weapons flying._

* * *

It was a look of pity he shot the dying woman on the ground, but it came out as contempt. He had effectively taken out the entire village as it burned with little effort and moderate pain. Other than the crackling flames there wasn’t even the gurgling noise of something bleeding to death as it slowly turned into a Daemon.

“Too bad. You were _so close_ this time, dearest Aranea. Mayhap if the King of Light were a person that already existed, you could have won.”

Perhaps they knew fully what he had become in the meanwhile. What mortals knew was vague enough, and even Ifrit had withheld certain information until Ardyn agreed to work with him against the other five for the time being. Ardyn had declined that and fled Angelgard.

He’d run Ignis through cleanly and Cor had silently blocked several blows before he finally went down. Aranea herself was on the ground bleeding pathetically – she wasn’t long for this world. How many other Araneas had bled to death like this?

“Alas, that person is not here. Is not born. Perhaps the Six have abandoned you as they have abandoned me; and you are simply forced to live through failure after failure, lining up endlessly until they decide it is time for their new Chosen to arrive.” Whoever that person was going to be, they would have been dealt a losing hand, he decided.

He had to make certain that the Chosen had no immediate chance of winning. That person would have to suffer agony just about as bad as being dragged out in chains by their own sibling. The fear of being closer to a monster than a human after a certain point. The terror of being alone in the dark with nothing but said monsters around them. Crushing loneliness, a great many regrets. Only when that person suffered through all that would he permit them to get to Bahamut sleeping in his crystal like nothing in the world mattered.

He was quite certain that the smile he then wore would look quite deranged, but Aranea was dying anyway. Once she was gone all he needed to do was to return to Angelgard and call on Ifrit to accept whatever pact the Infernian would offer him. There was quite a lot of time until the Chosen arrived, and he could make certain that the world progressed enough as a perfect battlefield fit for a chess game by gods.

“Even… so… we have to… try… Highness.” Her words were barely more than a breathless whisper; apparently her lungs were filled with blood from the cut she had taken.

He finally dragged his finger over a single, stinging injury he had taken from one of the villagers – it was barely more than a cut on his face, but as wounds inflicted by Daemons ever did, it burned. His blood was still black, it would never be anything but black, and he screwed up his face. It made him angry, but he would have to learn how to live with it.

“The Accursed and his dishonest little retainers, and both of them spew lies just as these houses spew flames.” Perhaps turning and walking away was heartless, but these three had lied just as the gods had. Loyalty until death; loyalty through the fall of a kingdom. If they were loyal they would not have accepted the terms of one of the gods that cast out Ardyn. “I shall see you next time you awaken, Aranea.”

Oh, how delightful that would be, next time he came across her. He had all time in the world until the Chosen One arrived, and all they had were life and death, lining up like pearls on a necklace.


	7. Prompto - Cassius' Final Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **EPISODE GLADIO SPOILERS. PLEASE TREAD CAREFULLY.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: implied body horror
> 
> \--
> 
> special shoutout to jamie for helping me stuff everything neatly back into order when episode gladio dropped and immediately danced through my plot notes for later down the line. Granted, i was planning something similar for Prompto and how it links forward to things down the line but... Agh. That's some trouble I'd prefer not repeating.  
> (which I will have to repeat if I drag my feet with writing long enough and Episode Prompto drops on my head in the middle of progress)

“ _You look… spooked. You alright over there, Prompto?”_

“ _Aranea… Oh, no, no, I’m… I’m surprisingly fine? Kind of shaken but… I’m fine. I just died, after all.”_

“ _Yeah, sure, but you’ve never really looked that contemplating before. Care to share what’s going through your head?”_

“… _Well, if you permit the question… What was the relationship between you guys and your liege? We retainers in the city were always rather… held at a distance and professionally only, and received training from… well, people eventually called him ‘Shield of the Prince’? But yeah, it was all dry and impersonal, but ever since this Dreamer business started I’ve been wondering… what was it like with the other half of the family?”_

“ _You sure ask loaded questions, Prompto… But I suppose it was different. Sure, we could be professional when we needed to uphold public protocol and everything, but behind the scenes we’d be calling each other out on things. Reckless rushing ahead, overthinking, being way too selfless… That sorta stuff. It was a lot more like being around your best friends and pretending to be fancy and royal once in a while, and the next moment you’d be bashing in the head of some Coeurl together because it attacked another of the group.”_

“ _I… I see. That sounds pleasant.”_

“ _So, what’s the reason behind that question?”_

“ _Ah?”_

“ _There’s gotta be a reason, kid, and now you’ve made me curious. You just died – I reckon it’s something that happened to whoever you were.”_

“ _Cassius. It happened to Cassius. Although he got himself into that mess and can only blame himself for it...”_

“ _I mean, sure, that happened to all of us plenty of times. But what happened to Cassius that you come here staring holes into the air and asking me questions like ‘what was it like being a retainer to Ardyn Lucis Caelum instead of Izunia Lucis Quasso?’”_

“ _Well, I met someone. Someone I thought long lost to the tides of time – no, he wasn’t a Dreamer like us, before you bring up that question.”_

“… _How, then?”_

“ _Well, I can skim Cassius’ life up to that point and get straight to the time he climbed into a canyon seeking glory and not even making it out alive. But before I start that, I suppose I should mention that… that’s not whatever immortality Lord Ardyn has attained. It’s not being a Dreamer either. But I guess I can start somewhere around the time Cassius’ memories of his past lives started cropping up, in the middle of a Canyon somewhere in Lucis...”_

* * *

Light fell into the canyon. It was dimmed through fog, but he still squinted into it. This was at least his second, if not the third, successive day down in these caverns, clutching nothing but his sword to his side.

Cassius had heard of the so-called Proving Grounds for the first time about three months ago. There were merchants travelling through the region regularly, and one of them mentioned that some Insomnian guard had gone there about a year ago. Nobody had ever heard of that guy again, and that was enough to pique Cassius’ interest. While trying to learn where that place was and why exactly someone would go there to test their strength, he came across more information than he wanted to. Apparently many people in the Crownsguard went there, and none of them had ever returned.

Cape Caem was remote and calm, and none of the people there had ties to Insomnia. Still, he set out saying that he wanted to go to the city out of curiosity – he’d actually gone for research. Once he managed to pinpoint the location to a section of the map through asking around, he vanished from the city once more and set out.

What he eventually found was nothing less than a graveyard, hidden underneath the trials which he soon found himself entangled in.

The journey was long and arduous and Cassius tried his best to not lose heart – he was a good enough fighter to last through trials; though he lacked the brute strength he knew how to tactically place his strikes and outlast his enemies.

The voices that followed him around were snickering and wailing, voices long distorted by whatever power flowed through this place. He certainly did not recognise any of these voices, but one of them that sometimes joined in – the voice of the Blademaster – made his heart skip a beat. It was familiar.

The first day he had been confused about it, and when he found a place to rest without being beset by whatever crawled through the canyon, Cassius had the most confusing of all dreams he ever had. It was fuzzy, as if watching it happen through a milky mirror. A milky mirror that eventually caught on fire, several times, until it cleared up enough for him to barely see what was happening. It was himself in that dream, several other people, and one of them distinctly stood out by being taller and more eloquently dressed. Next to that man was another man who was smaller, slightly slouched, but with clear and very aware eyes.

When the tall one and the slouched one turned to look at Cassius in his dream he woke up. The second day he spent following the trail in confusion as the voices continued their malicious cackle. He wasn’t sure if he had rested at all since, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Whether he had rested or not had nothing to do with the strange feeling settling in his gut. Cassius had no idea if he had actually slept or not, and if this was merely the sunset of the second or the sunrise of the third day, but he was not going to give up that easily.

He had to reach the end of this place since he agreed to being tested. That was all that mattered.

He continued his slow descent.

* * *

“ _Wait, hold on, Prompto. That sounds like it happened really late in your life, being unable and leave and such.”_

“ _Aye. That was Cassius’ last week of his life.”_

“ _Just the last week?”_

“ _Just the last week, yes. Fa’s life was thoroughly unsettling to you, from the moment Ignis came to her village as Zen, until her final moments at the hands of Oracle Concordia. Cassius' life was unremarkable up until that point, and I do not want to bore you with something pointless. What he found matters, not how he lived.”_

“ _And what Cassius found was someone from the old time.”_

“ _Not just anyone, Aranea. I mean, I said it before, but it was the man we all just called Shield of the Prince, since he was always around Lord Izunia. The person I met down there, at the very bottom of the so-called Proving Grounds… That was the very same man, twisted and disfigured. Given how Aster ended it’s not hard to guess what happened to him, but… he’s still very much alive, and aware. And still testing people who wish to call themselves protectors of the royal line.”_

“… _For real?”_

* * *

There were corpses that reanimated, corpses that slumped over as if he cut their strings once he defeated them. Perhaps they were other challengers, long lost to time, but Cassius soon realised they all wore the same armour. Or at least very similar ones, adjusted to whoever was wearing it. The voices were starting to sound familiar as well overall, the soft, thin wails of people he forgot somehow.

At some point one of these animated corpses tried attacking him with a torch. Some of the tattered flags hanging around the room caught fire, and Cassius’ body stopped all on its own. The reanimated corpse lay still once more, and the fire soon died out due to being thin fabric on solid rock, but for a moment his heart completely ceased beating.

‘ _How’s it feel, burning to death? It must’ve been so nice to go out with the other’s retainers and leaving all of us to become this.’_

“I d-don’t know what you mean!”

‘ _Oh, you’ll know soon enough.’_

The next trial chamber simply held an empty suit of armour and a long rusted beyond repair sword, but the design was the same as the ones the other corpses held. It looked like Cassius could fit right into it and use that sword to join the ranks of the undead. It unsettled him enough that he barely remembered what he fought in that trial chamber, but as he watched the Daemon sizzle out of existence for at least a short while, he wondered what the meaning of any of this could be.

It was during the fourth day’s sunset that he finally collapsed at another rather empty cliff overlooking the canyon. Cassius was exhausted beyond reckoning, both mentally and physically. He was carrying enough provisions to last about about two weeks in here, but all he did was drink some water. He wasn’t hungry; he was just plain nauseous.

Once more his dreams were strange and disjointed, of a man in a forest with a man whose eyes were as bright as the slouched over man’s eyes were. Again the tall one, again the slouched one. Three people and he around a campfire; a tale of a village torched and bloodshed both necessary and unnecessary at the same time. The tale of a Chosen One to end this pointless cycle, and the birth of a wish to see the cycle to an end.

Though fuzzy and distorted, he heard a voice telling him that there was no point in giving up until the task was seen to an end of failed completely.

Cassius awoke the next morning strangely refreshed.

Barely an hour after waking he finally recognised the designs on the armours and swords – Lucian knights. There were of course some that used other weapons, but an overwhelming majority of them used a design that could only be described as ancient. Cassius realised after about half an hour of pondering on that, that the designs were from a time that dated back to the Founding King’s rule. Which was several hundred years in the past by now, if not a straight millennium. Those designs belonged to the guard of the Lucian king that started the current line, the one people simply called the Founder because his name was long lost to time.

‘ _Lord Izunia, Lord Izunia,’_ the voices floating about the canyon and following Cassius whispered, _‘why did we do to deserve this treatment after devoting our lives to you...’_

At noon, he couldn’t carry on any longer. The sword was too heavy in his hands, and his head was filled with the whispers of these voices – of these spirits haunting the Proving Ground. There were details he was missing, puzzle pieces that were absolutely critical to understanding what exactly was going on here, and Cassius was determined to figure it out this time. Thus he sat down, crossed his legs and arms, and closed his eyes. He was going to figure this out, finish the trials ahead of him, and get out of this canyon as soon as he could. That was his main driving force at this point.

There were several names he had been called in the past. The longer he tugged on the strings connecting everything in his head, the more memories of past lives came crashing in on him. He got executed for a failure to follow a call to arms, once. He perished writhing in agony another time, and lived a long and happy if unremarkable life in another. It was the campfire that connected all of this, the faces of these three people he spent his time with, these three people he remembered so clearly now that it almost hurt.

It had been a long time since the dying and living and dying again started, and he had faced the very reason for this at least once – staring up into that face while curling up on the ground hacking and wheezing and being completely out of breath as darkness and a thirst for blood cascaded in and clouded his vision until he at last saw no more. He’d lived all across Eos, just as the reason had started wandering.

It had all started in Insomnia though. A burst of flame, fear and regret. There was a veil of fire that burned him as he tried to get past it.

Cassius’ eyes snapped open. The sun was setting already, and his head was full of things he should not know – the knowledge made it hurt, and his entire body felt like it was made of gummy instead of bones and skin. The fourth day closed with him sitting at the edge of the cliff and looking at the sunset above until it gave way to the stars and the moon. It would have been so easy just to accidentally skid off and plummet to his death, effectively resetting everything to the campfire as he waited for the other three.

But something tugged him along the path of the living still, and it had to do something with what was hidden beyond that veil of fire, what his memory refused to cough up at his demand yet.

He slept ignoring the familiar wails and watched once more through that milky mirror.

* * *

“Don’t forget. If you set your mind on something, don’t give up until you either reach the end of the line, or until you see the job done. Fear hinders your path if you let it take you over – you can defeat an opponent even shaking with fear. But you can teach yourself to not shake.”

* * *

There were weapons scattered about. Swords and glaives, rapiers and lances, swords thicker than Cassius himself was, katanas. There even was a longbow snapped in half somewhere off to the side as he descended further down until he reached an arc that looked an eerie lot like a bridge. A bridge with weapons stuck into it, an eerie memorial to fallen warriors.

An unmistakable stench filled the air, and the man gagged and set down his sword. It was the seventh day, and the last two had been completely unimpressive with what they had thrown at him. The trials got easier and the veil of fire refused to lift; the only glances he managed to throw beyond it were in his dreams through the milky mirror that completely distorted what he saw. Voices wailing for some lord that abandoned them, voices that told him what he was doing was pointless, that he was going to die.

He had reached the end of the Proving Grounds like plenty of people before him – and plenty who hadn’t. Those weapons were a testament to that fact, and the fact that none had ever passed these trials before.

“So, you have arrived.”

A familiar voice, and Cassius let out a long sigh. He stepped away from his sword.

“I’ve not come here to fight. Not yet, I suppose, since I accepted the conditions of the trials when I first entered this place a six nights ago. Please, if you would permit, Blademaster… I have a few questions for which I seek the answers.”

The Blademaster was still imposing, if nothing else, and Cassius was staring up at him with a calm expression. Perhaps that would help with getting the answers he desired – and much to his surprise, the creature that must have been a man once sat down.

“You’re a long time from home, young Prompto.”

“It’s Cassius, actually. And you’re a long way from Insomnia, Sir Gilgamesh.”

A nod. “Cassius, Prompto, does it really matter now that you remember?”

“I… I suppose not, Sir.”

A few minutes of nothing but the wind howling through the canyon and Cassius’ slow breathing were heard. It was unsettling to the young man, and eventually he shifted awkwardly and sat down. His head was starting to hurt again, as if the veil of fire that hid the memories of his time as mortal and not as Dreamer was slowly shifting open to reveal the information he so desired. He took a few deep breaths before folding his hands and looking past the creature for a few seconds to collect his thoughts. There was only one he wanted an immediate answer to, and he closed his eyes before starting to speak.

“This entire place is filled to the brim with undead and reanimated corpses of… of my former comrades. Their voices wail throughout the entire canyon begging for an answer as to why they were… punished like this. At the very bottom, there’s you. The man who was closest to Lord Izunia. What _happened_ after I perished in flame?”

“A crowning ceremony sullied by soot and black blood. People who voiced discontent were effectively hunted down and silenced, for history is decided by the victor; and the victor decreed that the ones who lost the battle were to be erased.”

“So were you all put here for voicing--”

“No.”

“Then what _happened_ to all of you, Sir Gilgamesh?”

The sun made the weapons scattered about sparkle and gleam. It was nearly blinding, and Cassius wished for the same ominous fog that had drifted through the canyon for the last days to return – but it was gone now that he was at the bottom of the Proving Grounds. Perhaps it was some sort of magic, the same that bound these spirits to this place. The Blademaster on the other hand fell silent for a while once more.

Cassius did not dare break that silence.

“After a year at most, there was… a change. It was as if there was a divine hand helping in erasing the king’s brother, but we all remembered. It was if he, his retainers, or even you, Prompto, had never existed in the first place, but we all knew better than that. But… the Scourge ran rampant. There were more cases than ever before. So many more.”

The man from Cape Caem looked back at the other man he had known once upon a lifetime. “It reached the castle, did it not.”

“Indeed it did. It claimed quite a few before reaching the inner circles, however.”

He could almost see it when he closed his eyes again to think. It was as if the veil of fire slowly parted and revealed faces that fit to most of the voices he heard in this canyon. The halls he had walked so many times, filled with anxious faces because every single other person could have the Scourge. There was a fair chance that whoever he walked past could be at the receiving end of a merciful death the next day, twitching and writhing while losing their humanity. It was how Aster had felt when he finally started turning, before the shock of remembering who he had been before Aster had settled in.

“What happened then? I… I know what happens to people who contract the Scourge. People don’t _die_ from it, Sir Gilgamesh. Nor do they become… whatever happened to you and the other retainers.”

A deep sigh.

“The crystal’s power is to drive out Daemons. In desperation over losing everyone and not having a cure any longer, the Founding King attempted to _make_ a cure through the crystal’s powers and determination alone. It twisted those he tried it on, and the few that survived were broken of mind. Broken of mind and twisted, inhumane. We were not exactly Daemons at that point, but no longer human enough.”

Corpses that reanimated. They were not dead at all, and it explained why they all wore the same uniforms and armour.

“By the time his son was born we had all been sealed down here. It is the crystal’s magic that binds us, and until the King of Light defeats that which the Astrals branded as Accursed, we remain here. Bedtime stories for children made this place some sort of Proving Grounds for the ones who desired to truly call themselves ‘Shield’ of the royal line – the last order we received was to play that role and test the fools until eternity ends.”

It was like training, Cassius realised. Prompto and the others had been trained in Insomnia by the very man he was currently speaking to, and now they all did the same to strangers that came here and accepted the trials ahead of them – and Cassius had, ironically enough, managed to avoid joining everyone down here by sheer chance and a violent death.

As if he could read his thoughts, Gilgamesh then shook his head. “No. You were no longer… considered a retainer of Lord Izunia after your death.”

“…”

“You were, post-humorously, assigned to Prince Ardyn and subsequently wiped from the pages of history.”

He had… almost expected something like that. The moment he had stepped into the room to listen to Aranea, Cor and Ignis he had accepted that he was breaking direct orders and would be seriously reprimanded for it somewhere down the line. He had not expected dying for it, but it still stung somewhere through the multiple layers of people he had once been. It was like losing his original self to the tides of times at long last.

“Look bright, young retainer. You, unlike we who reside here, have the chance to make right what has been wronged. We are a failed experiment, doomed to eternally live between life and death and challenging the living until death claims them forever or the tide carries us away at long last. You, on the other hand, will live during the Chosen One’s time, perhaps even get involved with that person who will save us all. You have started walking this path--”

“And there is no stopping until I wind up utterly and completely defeated, or until I see my path to its end. That is what you taught all of us.”

Whispers swept through the canyon as the sun started setting. Cassius sighed and stood up – his legs were so numb and his arms felt heavy. Nonetheless he went to where he had dropped his sword and picked it up slowly.

“You have given me the answer I desired, Sir Gilgamesh.”

He watched his former teacher stand up as well and grab a weapon – Cassius would have laughed if he had not seen it coming. It was a weapon he had seen a hundred, if not a million times in his life; the weapon that followed his liege around just as much as Gilgamesh himself had. The Rapier of the Founder, people called it, a weapon thought to have been lost like so many royal arms since the Lucis Caelum name had been stolen.

“I accepted a challenge when I entered this place. Blademaster Gilgamesh, I accept the final trial – man-to-man combat, to either the death of me, or the defeat of you.”

The Blademaster bowed, and Cassius bowed back.

“Can the pupil surpass the master?”

“I don’t think so. But I would rather try and go under kicking than give up and rot away to wait until the cycle sweeps me along once more.”

“Well spoken, Prompto Gemmae.”

* * *

“… _So you challenged him, lost, and that’s how you came here?”_

“ _Not the point of the story, Aranea, but yes.”_

“ _I know, don’t worry. Just pulling your leg. But… man. The other retainers that were alongside you all…?”_

“ _Most of them, yes. In hindsight I recognised nearly all of these voices down there, but there were a few I didn’t know. Apparently Lord Izunia was not the only Lucian King thus far to try developing his own cure through the power of the crystal. Whoever brought these people down there, though… My guesses would be either Lord Ardyn or… an Astral.”_

“ _Maybe. Did your master not say whether Lord Ardyn has been there or not?”_

“ _He gave me no answer to that before delivering the final blow, no. But I suppose something like that happened.”_

“ _Goodness...”_

“ _Well, it’s depressing and all, but hey! We aren’t the only ones lost in a weird stalemate with fate – that was oddly uplifting to hear. But it also freaked me out, and that’s why I looked so spooked when I arrived here. … Just makes me worry about whoever of us gets reborn into someone who goes in there as well.”_

“ _We can’t stop that, unless we know and actively seek it out, though. But I reckon none of us would be brash enough for that – other than me, and I value my life too much for suicidal treks into canyons to hang with undead just to challenge a spooky half-Daemon, half-human, full-Blademaster as a test of strength. Nuh-uh.”_

“ _Ahahaha. Actually, the trials were really neat. Some were gauntlets, certainly, but there were some that also were more of a test of wit and strategy than plain old brawls. There was even something called an Enkidu down there, and if I did not know better, I’d say that bird was at least part Phoenix!”_

“ _So there’s half-human, half-Daemon creatures there… and bastardisations of minor Astrals?”_

“ _Who knows. It tried to eat my head, so I had to defeat it. I couldn’t exactly politely ask it whether it was a Phoenix once upon a time or was merely made in its image. And I forgot to ask Sir Gilgamesh.”_

“ _Boy, you… you sure are a fitting addition to all of us. Probably one of the better things of your lordship has done – assigning you to us.”_

“ _Mhm, maybe. I’m just… I’m just glad I don’t have to be in that canyon with the others. I’m… happy to be here, waiting for the others, and getting to try over and over again. We’ll reach the end of that path eventually, Aranea. I just know we will.”_

“ _I sure hope you’re right...”_


	8. Aranea - What Time Forgot, What Ariadne Learned

“ _Ugh...”_

“ _You look like someone spoiled your food by putting fire ants in it.”_

“ _No need to crack at me, wise guy. I know you’re the infallible Cor Vigilis of the formerly revered and now very much extinct Vigilis family, but I think I screwed up big time this life.”_

“ _Care to fill me in, Aranea?”_

“ _Maybe. The hell are you doing here already, I thought you were one resilient bastard as usual.”_

“ _Rivers and three-year-old children usually do not mix well. And please, do not call me by my last name – all our families are long extinct by now and we should not carry these names even in the in-between.”_

“ _Fine.”_

“ _Glad to have that settled. Now, Aranea, how come you ‘screwed up big time’ in this go-round?”_

“ _First, answer a question. Have you ever wondered why this place is constantly dark? And have you ever tried reaching one of the other campsites we can clearly see from here?”_

“ _I have, in fact, not. And I suppose the in-between is always dark because… because...”_

“ _My point being – it can’t have always been dark. Look at the plants. All of them need the sun to survive but...”_

“ _...Oh. Oh! Now I see what you mean.”_

“ _Plant life can survive in eternal darkness, but only for so long.”_

“ _Did you study that in your life?”_

“ _No, Ariadne didn’t. She was more into the implications of old lore and prophecies. The one who studied the effects of the sun vanishing like the prophecies foretell was her best friend, Liliris.”_

“ _And that is directly linked to what you messed up?”_

“ _Yes. But maybe I should start somewhere instead of asking questions out of the blue.”_

* * *

“That birthmark of yours has always looked kind of funny, y’know?”

Liliris’ clear voice rang through the room, past those towers of books, and Ariadne could almost see her childhood friend’s expression as she said that. Ariadne, on the other hand, did not look up from the dusty, old book she had grabbed earlier. It might have been all thanks to Liliris’ younger brother being one of the council, but both women were immensely happy to be in the Crown City with access to the royal collection of books. It had always been Ariadne’s dream to leave the village and study instead of becoming the next seamstress in a family of weavers and seamstresses.

“So, what about it, Iris?”

“Maybe there’s something about weird birthmarks in here and we could look it up?”

Ariadne stood up to look for her friend, and found the older woman sheepishly grin up from what she was reading currently. “It’s just a birthmark.”

“Awh, come on, Aria! It’d be fun!”

“Again,” Ariadne sat down once more, “it’s just a birthmark.”

They had always been like day and night, despite looking very similar. Many people had mistaken the two women for sisters in the past, but neither of them particularly minded – they were close like siblings, even though Ariadne herself was the age of Liliris’ younger brother. Liliris generally joked about her younger twin siblings; her brother and Ariadne usually rolled their eyes at statements like these.

But where Ariadne was calm and introverted, Liliris was impulsive and extroverted. Ariadne was the stronger of the two, Liliris herself was the smarter one. Despite the differences they had always gotten along; some people even joked how they were glued together at the hip throughout their lives.

It probably wasn’t even that wrong, considering how Ariadne packed her things and left for the capital together with her friend as soon as she was offered to come with her. There was an intense curiosity driving the younger of the two women.

Ariadne forked through books every day as if she was a university student in Insomnia, except that she had access to the royal library. She was very interested in the worship and lore surrounding the Astrals; seeing as these deities rarely showed themselves ever since the fall of Solheim.

Way back, there had been cults surrounding the minor Astrals, too. Those had naturally slowly died out alongside the minor Astrals, until there was nothing but the six major ones left – and even then, anyone who had the gall to worship Ifrit was usually branded a traitor and burned at the stake. By now most traditions and cults as well as legitimate churches surrounding Ifrit had vanished and no trace of them remained, safe for very few ruins that might have once belonged to said churches and cults.

It wasn’t until Ariadne pulled records of said executions for worship of the Infernian that she realised that she was stepping on dangerously thin ice.

After spending about five minutes going through the book she shuddered and put it back on the shelf.

Ariadne didn’t notice that Liliris had been watching her.

* * *

“Say, Aria.”

“Mhm?” She looked up from her notes on cults surrounding Sylphs and at Liliris.

Three years had passed since they had arrived in the city and Liliris had only gotten back from a months-long expedition regarding her studies of plants capable of surviving in the dark a week ago. Apparently the queen herself had asked Liliris to join that travel since she had started studying that in her free time.

“People around the capital don’t… openly worship Astrals, do they.”

It wasn’t even a question, but Ariadne shrugged regardless. “Theoretically the royal family and therefore the entire Crown City worship the Draconian. You can still see it in some of the designs, but in recent years that has been going under in how much diversity is being brought into the city from migrants and the like. Religion in general has been stagnant or on the recess more or less ever since the fall of Solheim, but the mingling that has been going on in such a short time certainly helped speed that up.”

“Sure, but… The other day, while we were still on our way back… I saw an old temple, not far from what I assume was a royal tomb. It was so strange to look at, compared to how… grandiose… this city has become? Like, just an old temple, with ivy growing over its pillars, weeds cracking through the old stone floor. Do you think that whatever the prophecy of the Chosen One brings will be… similar to that? Just our civilisation, Insomnia itself, cracking underneath vegetation that grows as we wait for the light to return? There’s so many plants that can grow in the dark; there’s even some bearing glowing fruit somewhere across the ocean in Niflheim?”

“Y-Your… point being…?”

“Aria, the vegetation’s changing slowly, as if the planet’s anticipating something. Perhaps the Astrals wrought about this rather recent change, but… something’s changing. But is change really all that good?”

Ariadne closed her notebook. “Beg pardon?”

“You’re the one who knows about all of this, I just study vegetation. So I was wondering… are the Astrals in the right?”

It was an unusually loaded question for the rather carefree Liliris, and Ariadne raised an eyebrow. She’d have expected the brother to ask something like this at some point.

“We’re mortals. We can’t exactly… judge, can we? We don’t live long enough to make a difference.”

Liliris shook her head furiously. “But the King of Light will be a mortal as well!”

“That… is correct, yes, but… They will have been chosen, unlike us. Mortals that have not been chosen somehow cannot make a difference, no matter what.”

“Oh? So that’s what you think? Because… Unlike you I decided to study things about birthmarks. You know what yours looks like?”

Time seemingly stopped. There was a thin, wailing sound that arose in Ariadne’s ears as Liliris walked over to poke her finger into her upper arm where the birthmark was.

“That’s the Mark of the Dreamer.”

The thin wailing turned into a shrill ringing noise, and Ariadne staggered away from her friend and covered her ears.

Her friend was right, of course, but she didn’t want to say that. Mortals were not allowed to make a difference, and Dreamers themselves definitely never made one either. Those who had a grand goal set for their endless reincarnation usually succumbed to despair before long; it was very easy to learn through studying the base texts on Carbuncle and the Mark of the Dreamer. She opened her mouth to say exactly that, but her sight was swimming. Her head was pounding. The entire world felt strange and fake all of a sudden.

“Ariadne, do you have your hands in what’s going on in the world? How many times have you been on Eos before?”

The shrill ringing stopped as suddenly as it began but the headache would not leave. Ariadne, at a loss for words and unable to answer, shook her head and fled the room.

* * *

If she had remembered, she would have recognised this part of the library. It was where Alacris had studied the same things as she had, but for completely different reasons. Of course the layout had been changed since, and the density of books had all but increased since Alacris had lived, but Ariadne didn’t know and didn’t care. Probably wouldn’t have cared if she remembered.

Instead, she found herself holed up in books just like Alacris had been, with the exception that there was nobody she should have known sitting close by and watching her learn it. The Accursed was a long way from Insomnia, after all – Ariadne had to know. History had long since lost track of where the man had gone, but he was still out and about, and probably cursing the gods for his fate.

It wasn’t until she once more pulled a book from the shelves that her heart skipped a beat.

“That… can’t be…”

A book, handwritten, throughout the ages. Additions had been made by several people nearly every generation – it was a list on people who were either confirmed or suspected to be Dreamers, and some of these names went back to times long past; and names that had since died out. One addition to the notebook in particular made Ariadne gasp.

Her own name in Liliris’ handwriting. There was a long and rather incomplete list, and several of these names had been written by… either people with the same handwriting, or the same person. In different centuries.

It seemed completely insane, and Ariadne laughed nervously before dropping the book and fleeing the library.

She barely slept that night, afraid that reading over these names might do something to her dreams. Sleep was where a Dreamer’s buried memories usually resurfaced before vanishing once the person woke, and often led to terrifying dreams and nightmares for children. Ariadne herself had not suffered from this; only strangely disconnected dreams she barely remembered.

The next morning she knocked on Liliris’ door. It had been a month since she’d fled form her friend and buried her nose in books, but apparently Liliris herself had done something similar. Their studies were still part of a set, after all.

“Iris?”

The door opened. “Aria?”

“Can I come in?”

The room was a downright mess. Ariadne merely raised an eyebrow at her friend who usually kept everything around her tidy and clean, and Liliris shrugged. She made space on a chair so Ariadne could sit down, and fell backwards onto her bed with a sigh.

“Aria, I… I overreacted.”

“So did I, but… You have a point. There was something to that birthmark of mine that was unsettling, and the more I learned the more terrified I became. And the longer I thought about it, the more I started to realise that I… had the chance to change something. But I still can’t remember if I ever actually did, y’know.”

Liliris sat up.

“I assume you found the same book I did. All these… people.”

“… Yes.” There was a sort of relief on Liliris’ face that seemed completely out of place, but Ariadne decided to let it drop. “I know you should’ve been the one to study all of that, but I… got curious. So I looked into that birthmark, and came across… so much. Way too much. And I realised so many things at once that it overwhelmed me. So at some point I just wondered… did you ever exist, and were you ever my friend, or was that just something perpetuated by the fact you didn’t remember why you were here? Was I holding you back?”

“No. You were never holding me back. Never ever, Iris.”

“It sure felt like that a month ago! Whatever you wished for when you became a Dreamer, it must have been important. And as long as your memories refuse to come back, you’re being kept from doing your job to free yourself from that cycle you’re trapped in. What if this is the life you should’ve finished up, and you never did because you came to Insomnia with me instead?”

Ariadne shook her head slowly. “I don’t… remember yet, but I feel like… I feel like Insomnia is important. Very important. And there’s something about your studies that clicked with me, when I thought about it. Something about the Chosen, the Accursed, and the inevitable eternal night, it has to do something with this, but I can’t remember how it all relates to each other.”

Liliris breathed in sharply and jumped to her feet.

“Oh no… no, no, no...”

With that, her friend bolted off. Ariadne remained where she sat completely and utterly confused.

* * *

“ _If you permit the interruption, Aranea… That doesn’t sound like Ariadne was sick, hunted or the like; how did you die and manage to mess up badly at the same time?”_

“ _Two young women had full access to the royal library.”_

“ _Yes, and…? So had Io.”_

“ _Io lived just a few years after we died, Cor. Ariadne’s over a thousand and five hundred years after that.”_

“… _?”_

“ _You don’t get it, do you? You can’t fully change history, someone’s bound to remember or find out.”_

“ _Oh. Oh no.”_

“ _Oh yes.”_

“ _Did she?”_

“ _Ariadne all by herself? Technically no.”_

“ _Then...”_

“ _Ariadne sure made a mess of things; but one of the worst mistakes she made was putting a book back into a shelf with a scandalous look on her face, years before Liliris even found out about the whole… Dreamer thing.”_

* * *

It had just been a book. Just a small, handwritten book. One on executions for beliefs that were deemed irresponsible and evil – executions of Ifrit worshippers. Ariadne had placed it back in the shelf and forgotten about it.

Until now.

When she saw it in Liliris’ hands, her heart sank. The whistling sound returned and her head started hurting; there was something just on the verge of breaking through and making her remember what exactly was going on. That cold look in Liliris’ eyes. The fire that consumed the room – even though the real world was not burning, there was no fire, but Ariadne certainly felt like she had caught on fire. Had she been an Ifrit worshipper and had gotten executed in the past, thus leading to this sensation? What was it that she wasn’t remembering…?

Liliris’ voice was barely more than a whisper. “The royal family are not the ones that should be there. They’re not the Lucis Caelums.”

The burning sensation ceased within a second and was replaced by a cold shudder running down her spine. Liliris’ near vacant eyes suddenly came back into focus when she saw that movement.

“You were around then.” It wasn’t a question, and she was quite sure she would not have been able to persuade Liliris of anything else even if she had tried. “You were around then, and let it happen? You let the man who was supposed to take the throne get taken out and wiped from history to be reduced to… to… ‘a priest who had his hands in the death of Lucis Quasso and the King’?”

Ariadne could hear her heart beat loudly, and she was certain Liliris could too. She blinked several times before opening her mouth and closing it again to collect her thoughts – but her thoughts were stumbling over campfires, over laughter shared during a journey she barely remembered, and when she looked at her hands she was quite certain they were dripping with blood that wasn’t hers; black blood instead of red blood.

She blinked again and everything was back to normal, except for Liliris’ stare. That stare was what she usually nailed people she disagreed with, a cold and harsh glare that was only reserved for her worst enemies as far as Ariadne knew.

“I… Iris…”

“This can’t be right, I thought. I went and went to look for evidence that this was just a lie, but wherever I looked there was no talk of a second prince that lived past his childhood. All there was was the Founder, the Founder, the Founder. No brothers, no priests, nothing! Someone swept through history and made sure nobody remembers. All we have is this--” She waved the book around. “and the fact _someone_ added a note on how it was actually the true heir to the throne, not a prince, and that the name was stolen!”

“Hold it, hold it. Why would you believe a random book instead of actual reliable sources?”

Liliris flashed her a smile before grabbing a second book – it was the notebook full of Dreamers that people knew of.

“Easy. The second King was the Builder, but he had a man who helped him plan most of it. Said man’s name was Ignatius.” Liliris flipped open the book on a specific page, which revealed a list of names. “Ignatius is one incarnation of a Dreamer, one that lived by the time there should have been a dispute over the throne. Too bad people lost track of that man at some point, otherwise I could have tried tracking him down.”

The list was very incomplete, just as Liliris had said. Much to Ariadne’s horror she realised exactly when whoever had kept track of these reincarnations possibly with Ardyn’s help had lost Ignis – it was Zen. Zen was the last person marked on that list, followed by a note that simply said ‘lost track due to reincarnations; possibly completed subjective or gave up’. The same note was stamped underneath the name of a life that Ariadne barely remembered since it had been so short and so uneventful followed by Liliris having written Ariadne’s name.

“You mean to tell me… you believe all of--”

“Your reaction was confirmation enough. I know you, Ariadne, I know you better than anyone else on Eos. Or at least this incarnation of you. But if I were incorrect, you would have corrected me already. That is your nature as Ariadne, although I don’t know if that had always been one of your traits. But, just to make sure. Is it true, Ariadne?”

“… It’s true.”

“Figures.”

Once more Liliris left, her shoulders slumped, both books in her hands. Knowledge was dangerous was what Ignis had said after his life as Alacris, and finally she understood what it meant.

After that, her dreams started being of darkness. Darkness that wrapped up the world slowly, darkness that seeped into one’s blood and very soul until it turned them into monsters. Campfires, campfires, fire eating through a room and through her body…

Liliris had seemingly vanished, and Ariadne herself lost sleep. She was pale with shadows underneath her eyes. After two weeks, Ariadne had enough of this nonsense. There was a sort of phantom pain following her, the constant feeling of being run through with a sword, stabbed with a dagger, the helpless feeling of choking, the tingling as if she was about to catch on fire again. It was unbearable, and she wanted it to stop – but first and foremost she wanted to speak to her friend again. Liliris was all she had, the only person she ever trusted more than anyone else in this life, and she wanted to speak to the woman rather than avoid her.

* * *

“So, it’s true.”

Ariadne had found Liliris packing her things. Apparently the woman had wanted to flee the city after finding out that the wrong people sat on the throne, especially once she learned that every person who had ever known that had gotten executed and wiped from the pages of history. It was a logical conclusion, given that only a few shreds of information existed, and that only few people knew the truth to begin with.

Apparently not even the current royals knew that themselves, and the ones who kept that fact hidden… Ariadne had had her suspicions about that before; after all she had studied religion for the longest time. The men that entered the room at that point wore the robes of a small cult following Bahamut. Liliris dropped the shirt she had been holding and Ariadne merely raised an eyebrow. Behind the men – Liliris’ brother.

“Loquus…”

History keepers, the very few remaining devotees of Bahamut in the middle of a society that was paying less and less attention to the gods. Ariadne would have laughed if this had been any less dire a situation, but instead she shot Liliris a quick glance. The other woman was staring at her brother with wide eyes, and Ariadne had to make a decision right in that very moment.

“Loq… I mean, Lord Loquus.” He still theoretically was a member of the council, although Ariadne now figured out what position he actually had.

He was looking at the notebooks that Liliris had collected which were still on her bed. A decision, and Ariadne cracked the sweetest smile she could.

“Ah, so you’re the sweepers. The ones who make sure we don’t know about _that_ , eh?”

The men turned to look at her, and she definitely caught that surprised blink from Liliris’ brother. “We came here because we were told that Lili--”

“She doesn’t know. I was the one who opened these books on the bed over there. You just interrupted our conversation.”

“Aria, that’s…!” Midway through her exclamation Liliris realised what Ariadne was doing.

She knew that there was no getting around death in this case – Prompto had pretty much confirmed that people were sentenced to death for lesser things such as not following into a pointless war. Finding out state secrets certainly would be going with a worse death. But she was surprisingly prepared, and she knew she’d be back before long, after all. Liliris was correct in many ways – Ariadne had the chance to change; perhaps not history itself but help moving it along until the Chosen One would be born.

“Is that true?”

“...” Liliris breathed in, looked at Ariadne, shot her brother a quick glance, and then looked at the books on the bed across the room. “Yes. She tossed them on there and said she needed to tell me something. I was about to ask her what she meant when you barged in.”

It made sense, after all. Liliris simply studied vegetation and the effects of darkness; Ariadne on the other hand the spiritual and occult. Naturally someone like her would come across records first – she had – and she would quickly be able to piece something together if she came across additional information – she hadn’t. Still, death mattered little to Ariadne. Liliris on the other hand only had one life, she wasn’t a Dreamer.

The men looked at their leader – the man who surely understood what Ariadne was trying to do. She held her breath until at long last he nodded slowly.

“Seize the woman, and make it quick. I will interrogate the other to make certain she does not know. You there! Take the records and burn them.”

There was a certain satisfaction on her face as the men grabbed her by the arms and she heard Liliris cry out behind her. She stopped in the door, asking them to wait a second.

Thus she turned around once more to look at her friend, the woman who had actually taught Ariadne and therefore Aranea an important lesson. Raised a hand and put it on where the Mark of the Dreamer was. A wide smile.

“Liliris, I’ll see you once the dream’s over.”

* * *

“… _I still--”_

“ _Don’t you get it? I left her, and got executed. Everything she knows is still with her, and I know for a fact her brother would rather she run away and stay away than having to kill her.”_

“ _So...”_

“ _Liliris, out there somewhere, will most certainly try to piece together something about us, and I have no doubt that she’ll figure out how to call Carbuncle. That’s how I messed up. She’d going to join us, or at least attempt to, and there’s no way in hell--”_

“ _Calm down, Aranea. Nobody says she’ll attempt it, much less succeed at it.”_

“ _Are you playing dumb, Cor, or are you actually that daft!? Lord Ardyn is out there! He’s been influencing history and people ever so slightly! And Liliris knows he’s out there! If she doesn’t find him – he will find her. And then we’ll have more trouble than it’s worth!”_

“ _I see. Yes, I think I understand why you are so riled up now.”_

“ _Ugh! I just – I just did what I would always have done as Ariadne! And that was protect my best friend from danger! I should’ve just stopped her when I had the chance, but now she’s gonna up and ruin her own life, and--”_

“ _If she does, and she succeeds; you can try again.”_

“ _Wha--”_

“ _Isn’t that the lesson you learned from her?”_

“ _...”_

“ _Don’t go stick your head in the sand, Aranea – it’s not over yet. And if she becomes a Dreamer like us, perhaps we will eventually run into her.”_

“… _You… you’re right… Oh… Oh, goddamnit… I’m so sorry, Iris...”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SERIES ONESHOT "Ivy" LINKS TO HERE. It's the second in the series, so if you want to read it now, go to the next chapter and open the next in the series in another tab!


	9. Ignis - Aestus' Final Station

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: /
> 
> special shout-out to jonphaedrus for messing around with me in the "Ardyn Izunia steals various vehicles" party house that led to me realising i could link several things i had planned together.
> 
> ...
> 
> like a train.

“ _Good afternoon, Ignis!”_

“ _Oh, Prompto. Is it just the two of us?”_

“ _No, Aranea’s here as well, but she took off earlier claiming that she needed to see if we could reach out to other Dreamers. Haven’t seen her since this morning. But, she’ll be back as usual. Just as you got back here just now. Rough one?”_

“ _No, surprisingly enough not really. It was just a rather early death, but not as early as I’ve died before. You?”_

“ _Eh. Just ‘nother case of Scourge. Shot me down in my twenties again. But not in Tenebrae this time – this time it was Accordo. Fancy that. How about you?”_

“ _Niflheim.”_

“ _What, nothing more? You looked so confused when you got here, I’d figured something weird must’ve happened.”_

“ _Aestus’ life was… wholly unremarkable overall. Well, it would have been were he not… Aestus Aldercapt.”_

“… _Oh crap. You were royalty?”_

“ _A bastard son of the emperor’s brother with no claim to the throne, but of royal blood nonetheless. I had assumed we were locked out of being born as royalty in general, but it would appear as long as we do not have direct claim there are loopholes. I actually would really like to ask Carbuncle about this.”_

“ _Now hold on a second there – I wanna know about that! You say unremarkable, but you were royalty, Ignis! That’s remarkable as hell!”_

“ _Seeing that we are waiting for Aranea to return and for Cor to arrive in general, why not… So, Aestus Aldercapt…”_

* * *

“Celeste… wait up...!”

She was like a whirlwind that swept through Gralea, and many people eagerly awaited the day she would become empress; for the time being she was just Celeste Aldercapt, with boundless energy and a laugh that could melt Daemons. Still, he would have preferred if she had shed some of that energy as they got older, but Aestus nevertheless followed her wherever she went.

They were cousins but more importantly he was supposed to be her closest supporter. A sort of guide; her tactician. The one who thought for her when she didn’t think, the one who made certain her life went by as flawlessly as it possibly could. He took that job serious and wore the badge with pride, especially since he was effectively a bastard child anyway.

Royal advisor. Not many illegitimate children could claim they made it to such a high position with sharp wit and skill alone.

Granted, they were anything but children at this point, and Aestus was getting tired. He had never been one for excruciatingly long jogs anyway, but Celeste carried on and on as if her legs would carry her to the other end of Eos, right into the throne room of the Citadel in Insomnia. Aestus simply didn’t have that kind of energy.

Finally she stopped. Finally. His legs hurt. Breathing hurt.

“You really need to shape up!”

“Don’t… remind me...”

“Just a week! We really have to get you up to a junior soldier’s level until then; everyone else’ll be trained hunters and soldiers!”

“Can we… just leave me… as bait...”

“Aestus, I don’t think Daemon trains eat people.”

Once upon a time there had been a mob of Daemons that had swept through Tenebrae, devouring everything in its path and tearing everything else apart. Oracle Concordia had eventually taken that clump of malice out – at the cost of her rather young life back then. It had developed into a saying that one was as sacrificial as an Oracle – at least here in Niflheim. It had been a Niff envoy that had protected the Oracle until she had fulfilled her duty, mostly because her personal guard had been all but disbanded after the head of said guard had been found dead. A suicide, people had said, though most of them simply didn’t understand what would have driven the famous Fa to take her own life.

It had been so long ago, but Aestus found himself wishing for an Oracle to help them as well. Alas, the Daemon that had somehow taken over an entire train as if it was nothing was all but a ghost that haunted Niflheim; and the Tenebraen Oracle was nowhere to be found in this country. Relations were shaky and it was but a matter of time until a war broke out. Aestus still hoped that once Celeste became empress she and her boundless energy and joy at life would manage to smooth down tensions a little.

But before that, the princess decided she wanted to hunt down and take out the infamous Daemon people had dubbed ‘Doomtrain’.

She had been so adamant about it that even her father had declared it a necessity for him to abdicate the throne to her despite being of the best health. Naturally, being a determined optimist, Celeste had agreed, much to Aestus’ chagrin. He had pleaded repeatedly, begged her to listen to her advisor, but the stubborn mutt had simply chosen to ignore him and accepted the terms.

That was how he had ended up here, on the training grounds. Out of breath, watched by several teenagers in training to be proper soldiers. All of which were snickering at him, and Celeste herself was also throwing him a sympathetic smile.

“Look. I know you were against this from the very beginning. You can always stay here.”

“No… The advisor… goes where… royalty… huff… goes.”

If nothing else, they’d appreciate his insistence, even if they had to send him back after a week due to severe injuries out of stupidity. But Aestus had all but been glued to the younger woman since she was four years old, and he loved his cousin and wanted to see her at the very least get to be pronounced empress and lead Niflheim to glory through peace as she had always said she would when she was younger. Even though fourteen year old Aestus had definitely not known he would be nearly on his knees gasping for breath one day when he had been pronounced her future advisor. He’d expected something a little more dignified.

Still, that laugh as she slapped him on the back and demanded another round was worth it.

She could take that Daemon on, no problem, and return to become the empress she always wanted to be. And even if it would be a close call, Aestus would make certain she would return. That was the oath he swore, after all.

* * *

“So, how do you propose we find a Daemon train again?”

“It’s Doomtrain, and it’s simple.” She looked rather offended. “It’s a Daemon. It appears only at night; we just need to find it at a train station. Really, Aestus, I thought you were the strategist here.”

The plan was absolute nonsense, but he held back a comment. General sightings of Doomtrain suggested that it indeed only travelled at night – but it was a Daemon, and therefore not bound to linear appearances. It could travel either way on the tracks, speed up and vanish, and generally make it hard to catch it. There was a reason there were only the occasional dead bodies to be found; the other hunters that had found it apparently still rode with it. Most likely as dead bodies.

How she wanted to bait such a creature was beyond him, but Aestus shrugged at her in response.

“I see.”

She went at it with such vigour he couldn’t help but feel slight optimism himself after a while. Usually advisors were chosen because they offset glaring weaknesses in the future ruler, but there was something about Celeste that even managed to bring the normally pessimistic and careful Aestus out of his shell. Perhaps not with the same vigour and devotion as the rest of the soldiers, but she knew she had his oath. And that was more than anyone else could ever expect out of him.

Still, there was no denying that her plan was ridiculously dangerous. Even if simply trying to look for the train at night worked, there was the general danger of Niflheim and Eos in general at night – other Daemons certainly lurked around, not to mention the Accursed was around somewhere. Perhaps he was in Niflheim this generation; historians had lost track of him after they confirmed he had vanished from the Lucian island Angelgard. Incidentally it was about the time that being as sacrificial as an Oracle had become a saying.

Other Daemons and the Accursed aside, there was still a fair chance that everything could go south nearly the moment the thing appeared, or once they boarded it to defeat whatever powered it. Ghost ships were more a story that floated about Accordan waters, but this felt eerily similar to these stories. Daemons killed living beings, it was rather simple. There was a chance it would just appear, wipe them all out, and carry on merrily, leaving the title of empress to Celeste’s younger sister.

A thought so dire that even the usually pessimistic Aestus shuddered.

That woman was exactly the thing that Niflheim did not need – cold, war-driven and greedy. There had been several attempts on Celeste’s life in the past, and Aestus was rather certain that they had all been instigated by that very woman.

He didn’t want to think about her, though, and turned to look at the railway map that Celeste had brought with her. They had left Gralea about a week ago with the Emperor’s blessings, and since all but wandered following some tracks.

“There might be a good chance that it appears where civilisation is less dense. There’s plenty of barely used tracks used for cargo, especially over in the north. Several of the first and the most recent disappearances linked to Doomtrain were up there.”

“So, what do we do? Hitch a ride on an actual cargo train to get up there and start then?”

Celeste once more looked offended at the mere suggestion. “No. Don’t forget it’s a Daemon and won’t conform to what we think it’ll do. On-foot might be the better approach, especially if we stick to travelling in the dark.”

It was unnecessarily dangerous, but she had a point.

Normally people avoided travelling in the dark. All around Eos people sought out Havens and sanctuaries as soon as the sun set, and even those that travelled were generally in vehicles with amplified light that drove away the Daemons. What Celeste suggested was both bold and foolish; both of which might work out in the favour of the tracking team.

“We’ll need help from a hunter or two, though. We’ll make a small detour into the next village and ask around there before we start our journey north.”

* * *

The man they found was…

Aestus couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but something about Lux was unsettling. The man made it absolutely no secret that he wasn’t from Niflheim, and he glared at Aestus at every opportunity – as if Aestus had done something to him. The short red hair looked completely outlandish in Niflheim, and he was rather tall – and absolutely did not look like he could withstand even so much as a harsh gust. He limped, had the temper of a rude boar.

Celeste was positively enamoured with the man.

At the very least he had made solid reforms to her plans that Aestus hadn’t managed to get through to her, and thus they set off towards the north as this merry ragtag bunch of soldiers, the princess, a Lucian hunter of all things, and a very, very unhappy royal advisor.

It didn’t help that this man near immediately started criticising almost everything Aestus did. The strange drawl in his voice, the barely contained malice – and despite her growing up with him and knowing she could trust him with her life over everyone and everything else in the world, Celeste didn’t listen to Aestus when he voiced concerns about Lux.

If nothing else, he was a good fighter. That showed halfway to the north when they were beset by a group of Daemons. While Aestus had made certain that Celeste would be okay, the man took on an Iron Giant all by himself. The limp was a hindrance, but he still managed to make it through in one piece. The same couldn’t be said of two out of thirteen soldiers that had followed Celeste on her trip.

Once the halfway point was passed and civilisation was all but a meagre faint light somewhere further ahead, the Daemons started getting more and move vicious. Their ranks thinned, Celeste turned more and more aggressively determined to see this mission through to its end, and Aestus found himself actually taking up a weapon. He hadn’t been trained in combat; strategists weren’t supposed to enter combat after all. He should’ve been in an airship at best, if he made it to the battlefield at all, just like the emperor or the empress.

If nothing else, he seemingly impressed Lux with that newfound dedication to making certain Celeste made it through battles in one piece.

“You might just make a worthy advisor after all.”

That comment all by itself was the most ominous thing that anyone had ever told Aestus, but something deep inside him was strangely pleased with this backhanded praise. It certainly eased the nightmares he had started having ever since Celeste had insisted on taking Lux along, and apparently the man realised that as well. Aestus didn’t mind; he needed the sleep. There just was another layer of unsettling things added to Lux, whoever the man truly was.

Eventually they were five people – Celeste, Aestus, Lux, and two hunters called Zeta and Raven. They had finally reached the northernmost ends of the tracks when Celeste stopped the group.

“Wait.”

It was the middle of the night, and there was absolutely nothing here. Just tracks, and trees. Even the normally so chokingly hot and humid nights of Niflheim seemed to be lighter and cooler up here.

“Do you hear that?”

Aestus tilted his head and opened his mouth to ask what she meant – then he heard it as well.

A thin whistling sound and the faint screeching of a train on old, barely kept tracks. They were in the middle of nowhere just after midnight. It could only mean one thing, and Aestus slowly turned around to look into the direction the sound was coming from.

It was still some ways off, but the glow was eerie and reminded him of the red giants that sometimes appeared. It seemed unearthly and unsettling, just like Lux’ eyes were. Said hunter clicked his tongue near immediately.

“It would seem we have found your target, princess.”

The way the man said ‘princess’ made Aestus narrow his eyes. Completely disregarding that there was a Daemon approaching at a disconcertingly high speed, something about this bothered Aestus so much that he started getting a slight headache from it. There was something he didn’t remember – he didn’t remember most of his childhood before getting assigned to the ten years younger princess as her advisor. Had he met this hunter before? Had it something to do with being the emperor’s brother’s bastard son? How did Celeste play into this, and why did he utter her title as if it was a curse?

Celeste certainly didn’t mind.

“Get ready! We might just have one chance at getting on this thing and then destroying it. We’ll return to Gralea as heroes!”

Lux waved a hand through the air. “Eh. I’d prefer not to go to the capital.”

He offered no explanation, but nobody particularly cared. There was a Daemon approaching, after all – and Aestus finally saw how people had managed to get killed by something that just stayed on tracks.

“Necromancers on the sides. Mind these.”

“You’ve got a good pair of eyes on you, even if everything else is lacking.”

“Thanks for yet another backhanded compliment, hunter.”

It was just about now that he had no idea how they were going to board this thing. He’d always assumed it would stop to attack, but the Doomtrain made absolutely no effort in slowing down. The Necromancers would tear them apart while the main Daemon passed this place and vanished into the night once more. It was then that he saw Lux nod to Zeta and Raven.

“As we agreed doing it.”

“Aye, sir. We shall fend these off while you, the princess and the advisor take care of this thing.”

Aestus inhaled. “What now? You agreed on wh--”

Finally the rain rushed past them. It was unexpectedly long, with several compartments and the like. Before he could complain, Zeta and Raven moved in to lift Celeste.

“Safe travels, princess.”

They tossed her. Aestus let out a surprised squeak as his charge held onto one of the glassless windows and hauled herself into the train; next they grabbed him.

“No, no, no, I never… put me down! I’m not--”

* * *

“ _Ahaha! Really?”_

“ _I wish I was making this part up. But no, Aestus and Celeste – and by extension ‘Lux’ were thrown on the train, while Zeta and Raven stayed behind.”_

“ _Let me guess… they died?”_

“ _I 'died' before that, but I don’t think so, actually. Both of these women were more than capable, and… Well. I really do think that Celeste made it back to the capital after this. And just having Lux by her side definitely would not have made her ever get there.”_

“ _That Lux guy...”_

“ _Ardyn. Who else?”_

“ _Figures.”_

* * *

It was silent inside the train. Wisps of what Aestus could only describe as mist wafted about, and the air was stagnant and dusty. This certainly only was… a passenger train, like there were hundreds of them all across this side of Eos. People usually used other transportation in other places; after all Accordo was mostly rivers and sea, therefore boats and gondolas made the most sense there. And Lucis was a large territory with much unclaimed land; people there stuck to roads and Chocobos.

This, however, was something Aestus had sat in plenty of times; dimmed colours and strange cackling aside.

“Celeste?”

The air remained as unmoving and still as it was before, but a certain feeling of dread settled in now. Aestus looked around – he was not a trained fighter. He barely knew how to handle the weapons he had been given even after those months of travelling with soldiers and a hunter. If something jumped out at him now he would go down without much of a fight; yet another soul claimed by the Doomtrain.

“Don’t make such a ruckus.”

It just was the hunter, finally catching up to him. There were splatters of black that rolled down the man’s face – apparently he had fought something further down the train.

“Oh, thank the Six.”

Lux narrowed his eyes, but Aestus was legitimately relieved to see the man. This entire place was devoid of colour, but once the man had appeared his strangely red hair immediately stood out again.

“Your princess should be further ahead.” He sounded rather disinterested. “Perhaps you should go find her.”

Aestus bowed. “No, we both should.”

“Mhm.” Lux sheathed his sword and crossed his arms. “Perhaps.”

“I know you had other reasons for joining us back when we were looking for someone to help us hunt this creature down, but I assure you it is… strangely reassuring to have you here right now. Whatever you seek we will find as well, but first I would really appreciate if we could find Celeste before something bad happens.”

A crooked grin. “Someone as clever as you should know what’s inevitably going to happen.”

With that the hunter took the front and Aestus followed slowly.

He knew, he very much knew. They were on uncharted territory, essentially inside a previously undocumented Daemon in the middle of nowhere. Zeta and Raven were fighting the Necromancers somewhere down the trails, but there was no saying what else crawled about the train. Whatever the passengers had done before, there was no trace of them now other than dusty clothing; not even bones remained. There was no blood. It was wholly unnerving, and somewhere in this place was the princess he had sworn to protect. The train stretched on and on ahead of him.

It was pretty easy to understand that reality did not properly work for a Daemon, but this whole stretching of space seemed unnecessary and made moving even worse.

“You feel it too, then. The fact that space seems to distort here.”

“… Y-Yes?”

Lux had started speaking so suddenly that Aestus had to stop.

“I had my suspicions before, but this all but cements one fact. Eos is changing, and not necessarily in a good way. The fact that one affected by the Scourge can take over an entire train and make it all but a moving graveyard certainly… does not help the case.”

The small headache subsided as something clicked. Aestus straightened up behind the hunter.

“Well then, Ardyn… what exactly do you propose we do? I have an obligation to Celeste Aldercapt. I wish to see her home to Gralea at least in one piece, preferably triumphant.”

A laugh. “Well, this must be your lucky life then, Ignis. You and I share a common goal for once. I, too, wish to see _this thing_ gone, it does absolutely nothing but cause unnecessary chaos in what might prove to be a good stage player for the inevitable.”

“… So you’ve plans for Niflheim by the time the King of Light arrives.”

“Precisely. Come now, _Aestus_ , let us see that your royal whelp does not get torn into pieces what whatever remains of the passengers that lurk about here.”

People turned into Daemons. The fact that there were only clothes left here only meant one thing: they had all succumbed to the Scourge by the time this train became animated.

“I do have a question, _Lux_. How come an entire train gets possessed? Normally people simply turn into other creatures, leaving naught but traces of what they used to be behind. But this is wholly unheard of.”

“That is what I meant with change.”

The colourless world with the dust dancing in it. In the middle of a compartment, as if unaffected by the whole thing, the Accursed. Apparently this entire space was so warped that he struggled to keep his human composure; the black ooze on his face and clothes was coming from him himself and not from the Daemons he had fought before.

“I know for a fact that it was the conductor who succumbed to Scourge – I was on this train when it happened. But somehow he did not just change into something like a Goblin. His whole life had been so ingrained to trains that it somehow transferred over to this entire thing, turning it. I assume that someone or something had its hands in this – do not look at me so, I for once am innocent of this crime, believe it or not. People quickly assume that oddities like this were done by the Accursed; but by Shiva, this was not my doing. I assume one of the Astrals had their hands in this; my best bet would be a reawakened Bahamut or Ifrit himself. I would certainly know if it had been Ifrit, which leaves us only with Bahamut.”

“Nonsense.”

“So you claim. But the fact that mortals and Daemons are all but playthings on a way too large and way too long-lasting session of chess remains. Someone is trying to set the battlefield for the final confrontation ahead of time, and I really do not like being interfered with like this. I have my plans, and this entire oddity here is not part of it. So, away with it. After it is gone, we can simply part ways as if this encounter in your current life never happened, and we can wait until you lying bunch finally get your first names and wait for the King of Light.”

They were moving again, and Lux knocked a few goblins away with nearly half-hearted swings of the sword. Aestus followed slowly, with his heart pounding in his throat instead of in his chest. This whole conversation was unsettling, but the fact that Lux was so casually talking about things like rebirth and names didn’t help at all.

“Finally get our first names? My first name is Aestus, in case you have forgotten.”

The hunter – the Accursed – let out a familiar snort as he knocked yet another goblin aside. “Are you daft? You and the other three know very well that one day you will be reborn as Ignis, Aranea, Prompto and Cor. And that is, effectively, your final life. Most Dreamers never get that far, but those who did all but realised one thing: they had been waiting to be given their first mortal name again. That is the sign that the goal is clear. So, the moment you are born as Ignis instead of Alacris, Aestus, Ignatius, Delta, Sol, whichever names you had before… That is when you should start preparing for eternal darkness. If you even remember before darkness falls to set the final stage.”

It was silent again after this, and Aestus strained his ears to hear something, anything, that sounded like Celeste. All he heard was his own heartbeat.

This train was completely and utterly eerie to begin with, and slowly but steadily his memories returned. The longer he followed Lux the more his body filled with a strange ache, a strange yearning for something that he had lost long ago. He knew it was related to once having served this man, but there was also a strange recoil the closer he got. He was scared of him; where once had been devotion there was the lingering spark of fear.

Aestus just wanted to find Celeste. That was where his devotion had gone, his unconditional loyalty. The man in front of him probably knew that; but Aestus was a liar to him anyway, so it didn’t really matter in the long run.

Finally, he caught a noise that did not come from a Daemon, the Accursed or himself. It were hurried steps, once more coming towards them; they were in the second compartment. Ahead of them was one more and the engine itself, which Lux had determined to be the heart of the Daemon. That was what they had to take out, and where Celeste would most likely be.

Aestus pushed past the other man. What entered the room was not the same woman who had set out to defeat this monstrosity, however. Her eyes were glazed over by fear, there was blood in both red and black running down her face and staining her face.

“A… Aestus...”

She stopped dead right in front of him. Even her voice seemed tiny for once. It was so wildly different from how she usually acted that he had to take a deep breath.

He had, of course, not expected her to remain completely optimistic throughout all of this, but this wild look that suddenly crossed her face when she saw her two companions was enough to make his heart stop.

“We can’t… we can’t defeat this thing… It’s… it’s completely impervious to… to physical s-strikes… I’ve tried… I’ve tried...”

Lux clicked his tongue. “I had feared as much.”

“We… we need to… contact Lucis… need help of Crownsguard… magic…”

Aestus threw a sideways glance at Lux. This man could use magic, but there was a facade to be upheld. Even with the limp he had managed to make it look like he didn’t have the ability to blow everyone to pieces and freeze their bodies to the very core at any given time. But, and Aestus realised that, he certainly didn’t want to show that off. Perhaps magic drained him somehow.

After all, most Daemons used something that was akin to miasma and darkness; whereas Ardyn had always used the base elements and whatever magic of light healers and Oracles employed. Perhaps using any of this was tearing into his ability to keep himself looking human; and dark would not defeat dark. Judging by the expression the man wore he was rapidly coming to the same conclusion as Aestus, and before anyone could say anything he put his hands on the whimpering woman’s shoulders.

“Celeste. I want you to go with Lux. See if Zeta and Raven are still around; go home. Tell them you defeated the Doomtrain.”

“W-what…? But… it’ll still be a...round… and… and you?”

He looked his shoulders to lock eyes with the man he had once served. The former prince also had an eyebrow raised, and Aestus simply grinned.

“I shall see that this thing plagues a country that can deal with it.”

Celeste shook under his hands, and he gently shoved her in Lux’ direction.

“Get off the train. Leave the rest to me.”

“But how will you--”

“At its base structure, this thing remains a train. Which means it is feasible to believe it can be controlled. And since it is a Daemon, it might not need these tracks at all; it might just summon some for itself if there are no actual tracks around. Given that we need magic to take on this thing, wouldn’t it make more sense to deliver it to Lucis?”

A squeak from Celeste as Lux grabbed her arm nearly broke his heart. She looked so scared and nothing like the princess that would one day be a gentle and fearless empress. Aestus had sworn he would see her ascend to the throne and make Niflheim a country of stability, but… that dream would be dashed. Everything that people who bore the Mark wanted usually ended in failure if it was not directly linked to their wish.

“I see.” It was barely more than an acknowledgement from his former liege, but it soothed Aestus’ nerves a little. “Godspeed, Aestus.”

“No, no… you need to… Aestus! Aestus, come… Aestus!”

He had started walking away and raised a hand in farewell – his resolution would waver if he turned around to look at the now openly sobbing Celeste. His beloved cousin whom he had sworn to serve. Perhaps this was the best way to go.

“A-Aestus! If you… If you insist on this… this nonsense! How… how will you even… control this thing?!”

He cracked a smile as he went closer to the engine, the heart of this creature.

“Not to worry. I dare say that as advisor to the princess I have… permission to deliver a gift to Lucis. And trains were always quite interesting; technology only needs a little push and it can do most of everything all by itself. I’d say you have about ten minutes to get off this train. Get going, Lux.”

“Aye.”

“And… Celeste? It was truly a pleasure to serve you.”

* * *

“ _What the fuck, Ignis. Are you telling me you brought Doomtrain to Lucis and then bit it?”_

“ _Essentially. I learned the hard way that spending too much time on this train inescapably turned one into a Daemon. I was half transformed by the time I managed to land it in Lucis, and much like I had assumed it near immediately conjured up ghost tracks to travel on. My body finally gave in then; that’s how I got here.”_

“ _Ignis. You brought a Daemon-fused-with-a-machine to Lucis. What the hell.”_

“ _Consider the following, Prompto: Lucis has the tools to deal with it. As Celeste Aldercapt said, it was impervious to physical blows, mostly due to being a machine. Which means there is only one group of people capable to dealing with it. People who work either under the Kings and Queens of Lucis and share their power, or said royals.”_

“ _Have you tried setting it on fire?”_

“ _...”_

“ _Ignis.”_

“ _Oh.”_

“ _Oh, for fuck’s sake! You delivered a super-powered Daemon to Lucis when you could just have set the engine on fire!”_

“ _To be fair, would you have thought of ‘oh let me set this on fire, haha’ if you had been inside it!?”_

“ _Fair enough, but still. That was… very stupid.”_

“ _Indeed. Oh, good gracious.”_

“ _Well, one of us will most likely have to deal with this thing in another life.”_

“ _Most likely. When do you think Aranea will be back?”_

“ _Soon, I hope. I can’t wait to tell her that the infallible Ignis screwed up royally. Literally royally.”_

“… _For real?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No trains were suplexed in the making of this chapter
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> yet.


	10. Cor - No getting off this train

“ _May I have a word?”_

“ _Not even a greeting, Cor?”_

“ _Frankly, I reckon you definitely don’t deserve one after what you did as Aestus.”_

“… _Oh crud. Don’t tell me...”_

“ _Yes, Ignis. Your little blunder has finally been taken care of.”_

“ _N-No need to look at me like that… It was a simple mistake like it could have happened to anyone...”_

“ _A simple mistake that directly linked to my life as Gaius.”_

“… _Wait, Gaius? Gaius Amicitia, one of the Amicitia triplets of that generation?”_

“ _Precisely that one. Well, if nothing else, he’ll be remembered as a hero who managed to take down the Doomtrain rather than by going to the Proving Grounds and dying like his elder brother did. Still, really? Doomtrain, of all things? I should grab you by the collar and shake you until your head falls off.”_

“ _Easy there, easy. You’ve made mistakes as Io, yet I didn’t chew your hands off when I finally came around after Emil was long dead and Ignatius finally died as well. Even though we both know I damn well would have had the right to.”_

“ _Hmph.”_

“ _Sounds like you have a story to tell, Cor.”_

“ _Oh, you don’t say. Seeing as we’re the only people, I might as well.”_

* * *

It could have been a normal day.

Should have.

Instead, he was woken up rudely by the prince shaking him violently with a panicked look on his face.

“Gaius! Wake up! Get up, come on!”

Gaius was wide awake at this point, but still rolled over. He was the youngest of the three, and all of them were the same age as the prince, but he didn’t particularly shoot for the position of King’s Shield. Juno and Nero could always duke that particular position out; Gaius himself was rather content with just being one of the Crownsguard at 20. Which meant that he normally should not have been the prince’s first choice – Juno or Nero were perfectly capable and actively trying to win his favour.

“We can’t find your brother.”

Another voice joined in at last, “We assume he’s gone to the Proving Grounds.”

Beat.

He snapped his eyes open and looked at the prince at long last. For a Lucis Caelum at that age he looked unusually young, and his eyes were wide and full of worry. Behind him, also leaning over the bed to look at her brother with furrowed eyebrows, was Juno Amicitia. Gaius sat up – it was a miracle the prince moved fast enough to avoid their heads crashing together – and stared at the two of them.

“Juno… Prince Flavius…” He would have asked if they were messing with him, but Juno’s expression was more answer than anything else he needed. “He… he can’t be too far. Let’s see if we can catch him.”

Triplets were rare. The Amicitia family was just one family. Amicitia triplets were therefore unheard of before this very day, and Gaius took at least a little pride in that. Juno was the oldest, the composed tactician. Nero was hotheaded to a fault but devoted like none other. Gaius himself didn’t particularly care about what his family name entailed, and stepped down from any competition for the title of Shield of the King before it even began. He still appeared to his official training bouts and matches, but he took no pride in martial prowess. He just preferred being part of the Crownsguard, one of the people who protected the kingdom and king, rather than just the king.

Considering how devoted Nero normally was it seemed like complete nonsense that he would set off just like that. Then again, none had ever bested these trials, and countless men and women aspiring to be the King’s Shield had gone there in search of glory. Many younger Amicitias had also perished down there, and Gaius shuddered.

They didn’t find Nero. He was gone, no one in Insomnia had seen the middle child.

He never came back, either.

* * *

There were rumours that the ring destroyed whichever regent was wearing it, and Gaius could have sworn that it also already ate away at the children. The entire Lucis Caelum family never had more than one child – a single heir to take the throne. There had been twins once. One died when she was four, leaving her brother to be the heir. None of them aged well and died younger than most of their protectors unless said protectors perished in battle.

It didn’t help that the current issues in Lucis did not help the king and the prince at all. Aggressions from Niflheim towards every country on Eos robbed them of their sleep to begin with, and Tenebraen territory was already being trespassed on as if they were planning a strike.

The fact there was some sort of Daemon train terrorising Lucis remained, and it robbed them of even more sleep. People went missing; the few who survived nearly lost their minds. Even the more acclaimed members of the Crownsguard fell to this thing, and it worried everyone. Not that any of the people in the council would admit as much – Gaius’ and Juno’s father was rather stoic and unreadable, and the king himself was nearly as bad as that.

Thus, inevitably, it was Flavius who spoke up one warm evening on that balcony.

“Maybe we should try hunting it down. Take the stress off our parents’ backs – I swear my father’s growing 10 years older every week, and that’s not just from the Ring.”

It had appeared rather suddenly nearly 200 years ago. Before that it had reportedly terrorised Niflheim, but was usually seen in thinly populated, outer regions. Which meant it had affected travellers more often than not, and random hunters trying to take it down after initial reports. Back then one of the two heirs to the Niflheim empire set out to take it out, apparently with her head held high and a sparkle in her eyes.

When she returned it had been with her head hung low, with two of the initial group to go with her on her side – a hunter had apparently helped her find these two soldiers again, seen the three back to the capital, and vanished into thin air before the emperor could thank him for bringing home his crestfallen daughter. She refused the throne despite essentially freeing Niflheim from the Daemon plaguing it and left it to her younger, conquest-driven sister. She then set out to find the hunter and the train.

And was never seen again.

According to what the soldiers had forwarded her cousin had taken care of the thing, thus explaining her refusal to take the throne. He had been her advisor, her closest overall friend, and as she mumbled before vanishing from her home and the pages of history the one who truly deserved the throne after his sacrifice.

A few years after Celeste Aldercapt’s disappearance, the train she had tried to hunt down had appeared in Lucis – and had been wreaking havoc ever since. The lack of actual tracks made it hard to predict where it and its ghastly conjured-up tracks would pop up next. An entire village had been gobbled up by the darn thing when Gaius had been six; the village where his mother’s side of the family lived. With his mother visiting the place.

He didn’t harbour any desire for revenge, he had barely known the woman to begin with, but many people often joked about how it was long overdue that the Amicitia siblings set out and took down the monstrosity that had taken their mother’s life. While Juno and Nero had stated the desire to take on this thing in the past, they had been shut down rather quickly by their father and, surprisingly enough, the king. There was no point in senselessly risking one’s life for something like revenge, they had said. No further suggestions regarding the Daemon that terrorised Lucis on a whim had been made since, which made Prince Flavius’ suggestion even more outlandish.

The prince wasn’t even a good fighter, he was more of what had been called a mage in Solheim. Thin, tall, preferred swishing garbs, and used Elemancy rather than the weapons from the royal Armiger at his disposal.

Gaius stared at him silently, until at long last Juno cleared her throat.

“With all due respect, Your Highness, we have never been able to pin the thing down long enough for us to… for a lack of better word, board it. According to reports from Niflheim from the time, Doomtrain has a core that cannot be taken care of with traditional means; and while we can use Elemancy thanks to the king and you, there… would be complications.”

Flavius tilted his head a little and looked out the window. Insomnia glittered in the sunset and a warm breeze went over the city, ruffling the young man’s black hair. But there was a spark in his eyes that could only be described as mischievous glint; something that both Juno and Gaius had seen more than enough to understand at once what it meant.

“Absolutely not. We are trained members of the Crownsguard and expendable; you are the heir to the throne.”

“Hell no! I already couldn’t stop Nero, I’m not sending either or both of you on a suicide mission! Besides, I’m not as fragile as you’d think I am, I can stand my own ground just fine! And, besides, I’m much better at Elemancy than either of you, and effectively an endless battery. Warping, magic, that thing won’t stand a chance between the three of us!”

He had a fair point. Lucian royalty certainly got loaned a lot of power from the crystal, but amongst the most potent ones were the warp-strikes and magic. No other kingdom or empire had anything like it, and the barriers and shields that the recent generations had figured out worked marvellously as well. Perhaps it had something to do with how quickly all of Eos in general seemed to have progressed in the last centuries.

A doctor called Lily had managed to breed fruit-bearing trees that grew just fine in the dark as long as they still had at least a little water to work with. Even with her usually melancholic looks she had managed to be bewitching with her intelligence, and when they had been teenagers the prince had looked up to her quite a lot. She had then passed on with the same look to a short but intense bout of sickness, and the last thing she had ever said to the prince had been something about this plant being useful down the line seeing as there most likely wasn’t much time left.

Gaius sighed. The prince was correct; he would be a fine asset to have in a fight against Doomtrain, but he would have preferred not to have a charge.

With Nero gone the past year had been exhausting, since most people shoved the ‘rivalry’ between him and Juno onto Gaius. Gaius had repeatedly told her and the prince that he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to serve as Shield of the King – he would never be mentally prepared to give up his life for his liege without thinking twice about anyone else. Nero would have done so, and Juno had always been the mature one. She was a perfect fit for the role, whereas Gaius fit it about as well as a teenager charging head first into trials he was not prepared for.

“Well, you will have to try to negotiate that with our fathers.”

Perhaps the king would give, but the head of the Amicitia family was only described as ‘hard-ass’ and ‘stubborn old brick’ by most of the Crownsguard. Which had included all three of his children until one had vanished and died in the Proving Grounds, most likely. It was when he said that that the prince’s eyes lit up even more and a wide smile appeared on his face.

“Good grief. You actually…?”

A nod, and Juno sighed. “I was there, Gaius. I have no idea how he did it, but after bringing forward his reasoning and everything, both the king and father agreed. They said he would have to take both of us and some more of the Crownsguard, but once he managed to convince everyone to come along with him, we would set out. And you are the last person he suggested this to; even if you do not wish to come, we are setting out in three days’ time.”

He had refused at first. That didn’t mean Gaius hadn’t spent time helping his sister and best friend prepare for the journey ahead – they would have to consult a Daemon specialist in Lestallum, and from there on out they were on their own. The journey to Lestallum alone was exhausting enough, even with cars. There was also just the plain chance they would get attacked by the darn creature on their way there and be wiped out, but such was always a possibility. Thus they were limited to daytime travel and nights spent in sanctuaries or in Havens. Since the prince was no big fan of camping they were limited to sanctuaries.

In the end, it would be three days, since there were only two major stops and the route could be done in such time.

On the morning of the second day, Gaius sighed as he watched the prince try to stuff a dagger into his belongings.

“Flavius, you have the ability to deposit and withdraw weapons from what can only be described as magical hyperspace. You can summon them at will. Why, by Leviathan’s raging waves, are you trying to put it in there?”

“… Armiger’s full. Taking the sword, the mace and the other sword, along with my staff.”

“Wait. I thought there were five spaces for weapons.”

“… No. Even though my father can, I cannot. I’ve never been able to suspend more than four weapons; I assume it has something to do with the recent power inflation. According to my father the Founder had the ability to suspend thirteen weapons – the full ancient royal Armiger, and his own weapon. We’re much better at magic tricks and warping than the older kings and queens, but we sure are limited in what we can carry.”

“Ah, I see. Wait, here, let me help you put this somewhere where it won’t cut through your clothes.”

Naturally, after seeing that, Gaius packed his own things and told his sister he was coming along. The next day they set out.

Surprisingly enough the route to Lestallum was completely free of hurdles. They stopped as necessary, and made it to the lively city within three days.

_Finding_ said Daemon specialist was a different beast altogether. Apparently the man was an old friend of the king, but he certainly shared no such love for the prince. Or he was testing them.

Or wasn’t in Lestallum at all.

After nearly a week they finally found him. Somehow he managed to not get buried underneath insults and accusations thanks to a particularly sheepish grin he wore when he finally appeared, but Gaius himself was moments away from hitting that infuriating 40-something blonde guy.

* * *

“ _40-something blonde guy?”_

“ _Yes. And since your question is very predictable – yes. That was Prompto. Gaius didn’t recognise him, but I assume Deneb recognised Gaius.”_

“ _A Daemon specialist seems to be… quite the odd profession for someone who once was a royal retainer, though.”_

“ _You seem to forget that Prompto has turned into a Daemon more often than any of us. It would only make sense for one life down the line to be oddly interested in the buggers. And given that our memories awaken strangely more often than not, Deneb was considered a prodigy on nearly everything Starscourge and Daemon.”_

“… _So, how was he?”_

“ _Perfectly chipper. Infuriatingly friendly. Somehow he helped us nail down that train to a pretty small region in Cleigne. Now that I’m dead I realise what tactic he employed but… good grief.”_

“ _Seeing as you’re not as angry as before--”_

“ _I’m still rather, how would Gaius say it, ‘pissed off’, Ignis.”_

“ _Fine, fine, I get it. Aestus and therefore I fucked up bad, and it got you killed down the line. Can I just ask what tactic Prompto – Deneb, was it – used to pin down Doomtrain? Celeste’s was bad but worked in the end.”_

“… _Don’t go forgetting that you had a certain someone along.”_

“ _Oh no.”_

“ _Deneb’s tactic? He told us to go find the Accursed. Not that he said that exactly, but he told us to hunt down a certain pair of hunters. One of which was Lord Ardyn.”_

* * *

Half a year. It had taken them half a year to find these two men, and the hostility that seemingly oozed from one of them nearly choked Gaius. There was something about that that unsettled him.

The other one was perfectly friendly, as expected from a hunter sent there from Meldacio.

“An entire royal entourage, here to help us with that pesky train? Seriously, you look like someone’s rained on your parade, but we just won the lottery, Ciel!”

“Maybe _you_ won it.”

“Ahaha. True, true, it took me two years to convince you that two work better than one.”

After that, it became pretty obvious what the tactic Deneb had given them in Lestallum was – they were to listen to Ciel. The man had apparently spent the better part of his life hunting the darn train. Whenever asked about why he would mumble and refuse to speak for the rest of the day, and shot people glares that could have killed.

“Anyway, you’re right, Your Highness. We’re indeed the Ciel and Verus that hunt the train. I assume Deneb sent you?”

“Yes.”

A grumble from the other side of the campfire. “That blonde nuisance...”

It was pretty obvious he stopped himself from saying more when he suddenly sighed and closed his eyes. His partner, on the other hand, laughed awkwardly. Maybe it was just Gaius, but the man was breathing kind of weirdly – at the very least his partner seemed to notice that as well. A few minutes of silence, and then Ciel stood up slowly and vanished into the surrounding bushes.

“Yeah, uh… beg pardon. I’ll talk some sense into him; you can tag along for the hunt for sure, the help’s much appreciated. He just needs some convincing.”

* * *

“You’d make a fine hunter.”

“I make a much better Crownsguard though.”

“Well, of course, but… if you wanted to, you could easily be doing this instead.”

“Are you trying to run me out of Insomnia, Juno?”

“No! No. I’m glad you’re here. It’s just interesting how easily you fell into this pace, even though it’s… it’s nothing like back at home. I don’t know if I’d want that.”

She looked almost embarrassed there, and Gaius laughed before patting her back. They were setting up another night of most likely fruitlessly looking for the train. Another half a year. It had been a year since they left Insomnia, and other than the occasional phone calls from home they had not once set foot close to the capital. Gaius had to admit he quite enjoyed doing this, even if most of the Crownsguard had not agreed.

They had all returned to Insomnia by now, leaving only Juno, Gaius and Flavius alongside the hunters.

And they were on a time limit. The king had fallen sick, and Flavius would have to return to Insomnia before long. The prince was hell-bent on catching the Daemon by now, almost obsessed with it. It clearly worried Juno and she wanted the prince back in Insomnia as soon as possible – Gaius didn’t particularly want to leave, though. And that was what his sister most likely understood.

“I get what you mean, but I want to see this job done and Flavius returned to Insomnia in once piece at the very least.”

A sigh. “Having plans like that usually ends in death, brother.”

“Sure. But still.”

They were close to where the Proving Grounds were. Perhaps that made Juno even more nervous, and Gaius fully understood why she would be. It would be so easy for someone to go there and just to check if Nero had truly gone there. Of course there was no doubt by now that their brother had gone there years ago and never returned, but part of her still harboured the hope that he was alive somewhere.

“You’ll make a fine Shield, Juno.”

After that they remained silent, with the prince sitting beside the hunters and the Amicitias somewhere in the bushes. It was foggy here, and according to what Ciel had unearthed years before was that the train usually moved in the fog. At the very least it did here in Lucis – reports from Niflheim from the time when it roamed there usually said that it was accompanied by unusual coldness. Then again Niflheim was a tropical region, so a cold gust was much more obvious than fog in Lucis.

Which meant that Daemon had somewhat evolved or at least adapted to Lucis.

It was a terrifying thought, and Gaius shuddered as the fog rolled in thicker and thicker. A rustle, and he saw both hunters and the prince return to the vantage point. When Gaius raised an arm in greeting Ciel simply covered his own mouth with a glare. That was the group’s way of saying ‘stay quiet, idiot’, and Gaius nodded.

The fog felt unnaturally cold for this time of the year, and a cold shudder ran down his spine as he watched the prince approach.

“It looks like,” Flavius whispered when he was close enough for Juno and Gaius to hear, “we found it. Or it found us. Verus and Ciel found it before, and for an hour before the thing appeared it was foggy and cold like this. So they’re both certain that it’s going to arrive sooner rather than later.”

Half a year of a wild goose chase across Lucis, back to back with an equally pointless search for the two hunters who were after this machine. But it looked like they had finally found it, and Gaius breathed out in relief. He certainly wanted to return to Insomnia as much as Juno and the prince most likely did.

The older hunter’s face was normally rigid and unmoving unless he talked about the hunt itself, but now there was a strange smile on his face. The two of them had gone a bit farther away from the prince and the Amicitias, and it looked like the younger man was whispering something to the older, to which Ciel agreed with a slow nod. Gaius was curious what this had been about, but after half a year it was rather clear that the two of them had their own secrets and baggage to carry around. Ciel himself had certainly never given away anything about his past, and even Verus usually waved his hand through the air and changed the topic when it came to his partner’s backstory. It was shady, but not shady enough to warrant a royal decree to dig into it.

* * *

“ _Well, it’s pretty clear who Ciel is but – who’s Verus?”_

“ _I wish I knew. In hindsight it is rather fascinating that Lord Ardyn let someone close to him, especially a mortal like that… But I assume I have found another Dreamer.”_

“ _Oh?”_

“ _He never really went anywhere without something covering his neck. Since our marks are easy to cover up due to being on the arms and Prompto’s on his chest, I never really thought about it. But other Dreamers have to have their marks somewhere. And insisting on scarves or high-collared jackets even in the hottest Lucian summer… well.”_

“ _Yes, that does sound rather suspicious.”_

“ _It sure makes me wonder how many of us actually are out there. It can’t be much longer until Lord Ardyn finally snaps and drives everything over the brink. Or, well, they finally send in their Chosen.”_

“ _Hmm. I sure hope the latter happens first.”_

“ _Me too, Ignis.”_

“ _How’d the train story go?”_

“ _Ugh. Of course it arrived. Let’s go forward a bit, trying to board a wildly hooting Daemon pretty much came down to doing the same as you did as Aestus. Except it was Juno who stayed behind by herself.”_

* * *

For some reason he had assumed the inside of this thing would be eerily silent. By the looks of it, so had Ciel.

Just five minutes on and into the very last compartment, and they were already beset by wildly hissing and screeching Daemons. It were Flavius and Verus that reacted first by drawing and summoning their weapons and jumping right into the fray. For a good few moments Gaius wondered why he had assumed this place would be nearly empty, then he shook his head and followed suit.

Eventually Flavius decided now would be the best time for a ground-covering fire spell to take care of the Daemons. Ciel still had not moved at all.

“Seems like we’ll have to fight our way to the front.”

The prince strode off confidently, but the hunters bunched their heads together. Gaius slowed down a little to hear what they were saying as they followed.

“Didn’t you say it was empty last time?”

“It’s been at least two centuries since I last saw this forsaken thing!”

“Well, he better still be _fucking in here_ , then.”

“I don’t think Daemons go hopping off trains they’re on.”

The younger hunter grimaced and shook his head. “Ardyn Ciel, you know exactly why I’m looking for him.”

He should have been more surprised by this kind of name cropping up out of the blue, but he shrugged to himself before going to catch up to the prince. Something about this claim made sense, especially when he looked at Ciel. The hunters urgently discussed whatever still was on this train that Verus wanted for several minutes before Ciel finally walked forwards.

“Well, it seems we have a situation on our hands. I had assumed this train would be desolate and empty, as reports from Niflheim said… Alas, beggars cannot be choosers in this very situation. Your Elemancy skills will definitely be more than welcome, Your... Highness.”

It was a rather smug smile that crossed Flavius’ face in that very moment. Many people, up to and including the hunters, had repeatedly told him that he would be more of a burden than a help on a hunt, especially since he looked so fragile. Alas, being able to clean out mobs in enclosed spaces definitely had its upsides, and Flavius himself was much better at using magic than Gaius himself.

A fireball passed the train and hit it; Juno was still putting up a fight outside. The prince watched said fireball and furrowed his brows.

“We ought to hurry up – I trust Juno and her skills, but I would… rather not prolong this fight.”

“Duly noted, Your Highness.”

The tactic they rather quickly figured out was simple enough. The prince would immediately chuck energy into the next compartment, followed by Gaius and Verus bringing down any stragglers, and Ciel making certain nothing appeared from behind. It was scarily efficient, all things considered. Naturally it took longer, especially since the prince had to stop to try pulling energy from nearby deposits as the train passed them by, but combined with Juno’s skilled blows and call-outs as she fought the accompanying Daemons, they made it with little to no injuries. Only Gaius had managed to get jabbed by a goblin thus far.

“The engine should be up ahead and--”

A slice.

Verus barely even dodged whatever attacked him; they only saw the arc of a weapon tracing the air and the hunter staggering backwards avoiding whatever had attacked him.

“Ah, goddammit. Of course.”

Gaius was not quite sure what to think of what he saw. It looked human enough, but clearly carried the characteristics of a Daemon – glowing eyes, a gurgling hiss, black ooze running down its entire body. But this thing clearly wore the remains of human clothes; he wasn’t quite certain what it was but it certainly looked like a Niflheim-style military uniform, something they usually made their tacticians wear. Still it also carried a weapon, a weapon that was seemingly melded together with what might have been an arm once.

“Is that...”

It surprisingly enough was Ciel who stepped forward. The creature – Gaius didn’t really have a better word for it, it looked too human to truly be a Daemon – moved backwards a little.

“It would seem we’ve found Aestus Aldercapt. Which was your goal originally, Verus.” He gestured at the prince and the Amicitia to come forwards – why on earth was that Daemon moving away from him – and rolled his eyes when neither prince nor guard moved. “Come on. The engine’s just up ahead.”

“H-Hold it! I’ve played dumb this entire time, and--”

“Is now _really_ the time to bring out accusations of someone being the Accursed, Prince Flavius Lucis Caelum? If I truly were the Accursed, do you not think I would have made an attempt on your life to prevent whatever prophecy you fancy royals in your fancy city have?”

Gaius snorted. He had a point, even if it was barely held together by anything. Flavius on the other hand looked as if he were thinking about something. “What about…?”

“A man after a Daemon that quite obviously is of Niff origin. Look at the remains of the clothing.” Ciel sounded mildly amused. “A Daemon that used to be a man, and said man brought the creature we’re currently _standing inside of_ to Lucis in the first place. A Daemon that has wiped out entire villages. Do you need some more help connecting the dots, or do you want me to colour it out for you as well, Your Highness?”

“… No. But I don’t want to leave him on his own.”

This time it was the other hunter who nearly hooted while drawing his weapon. “Please. If I die, I get to join my entire extended family that was wiped clean from the books of history alongside the place of my birth. I die fighting who brought it here while you wipe out what caused it; we all go under kicking and screaming; we actually make it. Did you really believe I came here with the intention of leaving unfinished business? Deneb sent you to the people who were on a suicide mission. Now go.”

* * *

“ _That...”_

“ _Yeah. I don’t know if he made it, if he defeated your animated but soulless corpse, or anything else.”_

“… _I had… I had no idea.”_

“ _You brought what already caused issues in Niflheim to Lucis, Ignis. Of course someone would grow up to be a vengeance-driven person dead set on wiping out what caused it.”_

“ _But that’s not what I intended! Aestus didn’t think it would--”_

“ _None of us really think.”_

“ _B-Beg pardon?”_

“ _Ignis, we… I think at this point we are rather… unhinged from reality, especially once our memories start awaking. It already happened to you as Alacris, and Aestus might have had good intentions but at the end of the day he – therefore you – knew that you’d just revive. We’ve lost touch with our mortality, because death is fleeting to us. We might understand causes of our actions, but in the long run it doesn’t affect us as much as normal mortals. Where are Aranea and Prompto?”_

“ _...”_

“ _They’re still alive. Prompto lives in Lestallum, happily approaching 60 and fully aware of who he has been in the past. Deneb looked perfectly happy when Gaius met him – that smile was unsettling. Absolutely unsettling. We don’t know where Aranea is – anywhere on Eos is fair game. We won’t know where she was until she arrives here. Therefore, perfectly unaffected by anything that happened in Lucis at the time. Were you Lucian this time?”_

“… _No. Tenebraen.”_

“ _Did the train affect you outside of Aestus’ life?”_

“ _No. Terra lived in Insomnia, Zwei in Niflheim, and Altair… well, in Tenebrae.”_

“…”

“ _Gaius was affected. And that hunter named Verus.”_

“ _Cor…”_

“ _No need to look at me like that. We all make mistakes. But yours was most likely directly caused by how we perceive mortality at this point. I might as well finish the story, although you can figure out the rest by yourself.”_

* * *

Unsurprisingly enough, Ciel dropped the facade immediately once they were near the engine. His normally flat expression turned into something terrifying, and Flavius hid behind Gaius. Gaius, meanwhile, couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. The glowing eyes, the fact that there was the same grime running down the man’s face as if he were a Daemon – not even the fact that the other hunter was fighting what remained of Aestus Aldercapt was surprising. And Gaius finally realised why that was all the case.

“Granted, I should have seen that coming.”

The heart of the Daemon pounded next to them, and Flavius whimpered slightly.

“But, here we are again, Lord Ardyn. You let Ignis off the hook when he decided to do whatever he ended up doing to bring this thing here; but I assume that had something to do with the uninvolved royalty. The Lucian royalty is involved, however. So, am I safe with the assumption that neither me nor him will get off this… hah. There’s no getting off this train for either of us?”

Even the growl sounded like it came from a Daemon rather than the human being Gaius had known once. The prince behind him whimpered louder.

“...”

No answer was not what the Amicitia had been expecting out of his former liege, and he simply raised an eyebrow. “Truly, a growl? Have you sunken so low--”

“Would it matter to _you?”_

“Gaius, what--”

“Be quiet, princeling. I am currently speaking to your oh-so-mighty protector. Would it matter to you, Cor?”

He shrugged slightly. “I suppose not.”

“And that, my old friend, is where the slippery slope begins. You four are quite losing your touch with what affects the living rather than the ones doomed to die and live again. You are correct; I let Ignis do as he pleased because there was one very unfortunately stubborn soul on that train with us. Returning alive shattered her, twisted her mind. She set off after the train, finding naught but utter despair for the longest time. Once I learned the fool had attempted to follow me, she had gotten herself slaughtered on Lucian soil while protecting her own kid. Years had passed, she had found momentary peace, and then the train had come and destroyed it all over again.”

Gaius shrugged. “So that man is…”

“Verus Aldercapt. Doomed to die, like the family that adopted his father. He has absolutely no intention of making it off this train alive.”

They had not been paying attention to the prince. Flavius had let go of Gaius once Ciel had told him to remain quiet, but neither of them had thought that he would be sneaking off on his own.

It was like all those years in the Citadel – the prince would go off on his own and cause some sort of trouble. It always had been the three Amicitias that had helped him out of whatever messes he had gotten into; they had always forgiven him because of his sheepish grins and the fact they all cared for the prince as if he was their unofficial sibling.

Now smoke was filling the engine room, and thunder crackled over everything. Ciel snapped back into his human glamour, and Gaius froze. That wasn’t normal. The prince had absolutely no affinity for thunder magic. A screech from the outside that sounded a suspicious lot like Juno yelling something in surprise further made the hair on the Amicitia’s entire body stand.

Sparks were going off what had turned into the writhing, beating core of the Daemon, it was still machinery underneath all of that. The night lit up as lightning cracked across the sky outside – accompanied by another shriek from his sister.

“No! Flavius, no!” He tried closing the distance between his friend and him, completely disregarding the man that was still behind them, but the prince backed away as far as he could. There was fear written all over his face.

“You’re not Gaius. You’re definitely not Gaius.”

Thunder rolled as heavy rain started.

Lightning scorched the night sky, and the surrounding trees.

The last thing Gaius saw was the vague shape of the Fulgurian, appearing for a split second before the entire world shifted.

* * *

“ _...”_

“ _That...”_

“ _Yes. He wiped out the train by calling upon one of the Six. And wiped me out in the process.”_

“ _Lord Ardyn…?”_

“ _Cannot die. He might have passed out, but I assume none but the prince made it.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Hey. You’re full of shit, Cor.”_

“ _Greetings, Aranea.”_

“ _Look at Ignis, you’ve talked the words out of him. But yes, your prince made it back in one piece just in time for his father to die. With him was that sister of yours from that lifetime.”_

“ _Juno lived, then...”_

“ _The Amicitias aren’t gonna die out that easily, I suppose. But Ignis screwed up, sure. So did all of us across the pages of history. Lord Ardyn’s blaming us for a crime we didn’t commit, and we sure as hell are not trying to stop him. And whatever the fresh hell the Astrals are planning, I ain’t got a clue. But I’ve had it up to here! Whenever one of us runs into Lord Ardyn we get all mushy and depressed. Well, I’m sick of it! I want these damn useless gods or whatever they are to actually do their fucking thing!”_

“… _So do I. My apologies, Ignis, I was… riled. Like her.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will definitely be touched upon in the next interlude chapter.
> 
> as for wondering when exactly this takes place; Flavius is the 109th.


	11. The Stage is set

After a while trying to set a stage became dreadfully boring. He had assumed that sooner rather than later that so-called King of Light would arrive, especially now that the man they called the Accursed had essentially entered a pact with the Infernian. All that happened were years of dread and boredom – every single one could be the next, but they never turned out to be.

Another thing Ardyn noticed was the fact that Daemons seemed to mutate whenever he was around. It must have been a side-effect of some kind, but the moment the entire train came to a screeching halt he knew that he had accidentally caused the creation of… quite a thing.

He fled into the night with the few people who made it off the train before it turned entirely and became a driving graveyard. Perhaps he should have taken it out when he had the chance, but instead he wormed his way back into Lucis, back onto Angelgard.

The island was blissfully quiet and desolate. The sun burned down on it, and he had to shield his eyes from the harsh sunlight. At the very least he could still move during the day; a small mercy in the grand play he’d found himself in.

Naturally the god he wanted to speak with for once did not appear. Not even a trace of the Infernian, and Ardyn left the island in a huff. All of this was pointless torture, and quickly he realised that this was exactly what they wanted to do to him. He could not even accuse them of doing this to him and him specifically; the mutations that happened around him might have simply been a side-effect of corrupted magic. That would have been the most hilarious explanation for it – the healer caused mutations instead of cures. Even the Daemons were suspiciously silent as he returned to Niflheim.

They remained quiet, even when he recognised Ignis as the nervous-looking man behind the princess who proclaimed she was hunting the train just like him.

So eerily quiet as he pulled the screeching girl off the train.

Silence as they watched the thing disappear, and Ignis – Aestus – with it.

He almost missed them.

* * *

“ _Wait!”_

“ _What now, Izunia?”_

“ _Nothing important. Here, I reckon you could use it.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Safe travels, brother. I hope you do not need it and return once you’ve gathered the weapons.”_

“ _Why are you--”_

“ _It’s a loan. I want it back once you return; but seeing as you only set out with Vigilis, I thought it unwise to leave unarmed. I know you are a healer first and foremost, you saved my life after all, but I truly do not wish to see Vigilis die trying to defend an unarmed man.”_

“ _How… thoughtful?”_

“ _Come home in one piece, Ardyn.”_

* * *

It wasn’t a good idea to let the child live, not a good idea at all. Royal families normally never left their countries, let alone during times of tension. If anyone from Niflheim found out that there were two Aldercapts living in Lucis everything would explode instead of remaining in the tense balance Ardyn had managed to leave everything in.

He just couldn’t kill a child by himself or doom it to starvation.

Thus he wasn’t quite sure what he had expected when he returned to that place, years later. Nothing but ruins, with plantlife already claiming back most of the area. It must have been destroyed and desolate for quite a while. At the very least it meant that the Aldercapts were taken care of, and the balance would be easier to keep.

So he thought.

One afternoon he found himself bleeding on the ground. Gored by local wildlife, and he was bleeding heavily. Well, that was at least a way for the hunter Ciel to go; he wouldn’t have to just vanish. They could bury him alive for all he cared. It had happened before. It had all happened before. As long as no one found him before nightfall he could make certain it looked as if he had been killed by a dying Daemon, perhaps even make it seem as if his blood were red mixed together with the black grime of a Daemon he had wounded.

Naturally someone found him.

But instead of yell – Ardyn was delirious from blood loss at this point – all he heard was a sigh. The healer blacked out.

When he opened his eyes again he stared into a fire and heard a voice behind him A hunter. One he had shooed away time and time again because he was annoying and incompetent. It was easier to fake a disappearance or a death if there were no connections, and people got so very suspicious of the apparently never ageing man.

“Ah, you back with me, then?”

He was taking care of Ardyn’s back.

Time froze as Ardyn’s heart stopped entirely.

“Hey, you can at least fake being alive, that’s frankly kind of freaky.”

“...”

He’d watched entire generations of families, especially when he decided to stay in a country for longer than a few years. It was usually required for subtly influencing history to remain in a place every once in a while. Thus, Ardyn had quickly learned how to differentiate between the average person, royalty in disguise – and Dreamers.

Unsurprisingly enough the man had – it was hard to see in the dark – a mark on his neck. Ardyn hissed through clenched teeth.

“Well, that definitely sates my curiosity, though. I always wondered what the Accursed looked like.”

Ardyn’s disguise as Ciel was that of the unapproachable lone wolf hunter with a goal that was nothing more than a suicide mission. Many people had attempted to somehow shove their way in, and none of them had ever succeeded; it was his usual approach to things when he decided that this time around he was a hunter. A hundred, a billion lifetimes, and Ardyn strangely enough always fell back to being a hunter in some way. He blamed that kid that used to be under Izunia’s guard back when he had been a hunter. The stories he had told and which Ardyn had seen in action until the kid finally gave had reminded him of the past.

Hunters were tolerated, if not liked. It was certainly easier to come claiming he was a hunter than demand everything by telling the truth.

“I’d expected someone… bulkier?”

“Books, covers, don’t judge.”

“No, I’m serious. Stories make the Accursed sound like some hulk of a man, moving slowly with bloodshot eyes and claws; something stuck between Daemon and man and something to be pitied. At least, that’s how they always told me in the past. But sheesh… You’re all skin and bone.”

“Most hunters are.”

“We really aren’t Tenebraen hunters from the past, though. I’m poor as they come, and even I manage to not look like death trapped under several layers of clothing.”

Ardyn was still bleeding. But something about that exchange reminded him of the past, back when he had been a healer. Normally speaking to injured people or those afflicted by the Scourge calmed them down enough to begin the treatment, and it was something he had done so much in the past he recognised it at once.

“What exactly are you trying to distract me from?”

“Ah. Well,” A stinging pain shot through Ardyn, and he had to chomp on his own hand to not start screaming. He hadn’t even been sure if he still felt pain other than the old injury of his. “this.”

“Th-Thanks for… the warning...”

After that night, he ended up permitting the other man to follow him around. After a week Ardyn however realised one thing:

There was no reaction about him being more Daemon than man. Most Dreamers still reacted to that.

When asked about it, the man called Verus simply started laughing. “Oh, _that’s_ what you’re worried about? Frankly, your burned out Mark on the back freaked me out more than that. Thing about remembering is, you just… dull to some things. I know people turn into Daemons; I know the Accursed was something like that. But royalty’s Mark, burned out like that on your back?”

* * *

“ _...”_

“Not to worry, we will return you anon, son of Lucis.”

“… _That bird took me out?”_

“Would have taken _your life._ You are currently merely injured lightly and unconscious, but if it had been your time to go, your head would have been cleaved cleanly off.”

“ _How come only royalty like me, father and Izunia get a free card out of death, anyway?”_

“Royalty can influence, royalty is led by the Astrals. Think of it as if we are making certain that the ones who commune with the gods do not leave ere their duty is fulfilled.”

“… _Carbuncle?”_

“Yes, son of Lucis?”

“ _Do you and the royals have a choice in who dies and who lives?”_

“… Hold onto that question. We… cannot answer it. Not yet. Return to the living, son of Lucis.”

* * *

The air crackled.

Or, to be more precise, the remaining mist did. He’d listened to the groaning and creaking of an unnatural Daemon struck fatally and the vanishing of it. He’d heard the soft footsteps that staggered towards another person. Heard the voice of a sister who had lost both her brothers as she told the prince that they would return. No one could have survived that.

Ardyn remained still. The prince would know he was not dead, but that young man had clearly not cared. Through half-opened eyes he had watched his distant relative stagger off with the wounded Amicitia woman.

Not too far from Ardyn was what used to be Cor. Eyes wide open but otherwise completely still, the shock of being struck by divine lightning clearly written on the dead man’s face. Wafts of mist crackled as they brushed past the bodies, and the Daemons were long vanished by the time Ardyn wheezed and sat up. Nothing else in the region moved, and he finally saw that several birds had also literally been struck by lightning and plucked from the skies.

Normally the gods rarely answered the call of royalty. In fact, most of the five had hidden themselves from mortals and watched from afar as soul after soul powered the Ring of the Lucii – how on earth had the Fulgurian answered that prince’s pleas? There was no point in crying over a gone thunderstorm like that, but it left Ardyn seriously confused. He could count the kings and queens, princes and princesses, that had their calls answered in the last one thousand years on one hand. Well, no longer one hand, since Flavius Lucis Caelum had been the sixth.

Six in a thousand years.

The Glacian definitely only answered to the Oracles at this point while waiting; the Hydraean rarely awoke from slumber. The Archaean sometimes called out to the royals, and it was hilarious to watch them squirm as their heads pounded. As for the Draconian, Ardyn was rather certain that the scaled bastard was still watching from the Crystal, waiting for the time to appoint the Chosen One who would face their failed project that had gone rogue. And the Infernian…

The Accursed got up slowly. He had learned that he was indeed causing corruptions when he was around people who were turning into Daemons. Anomalies amongst breeds – a winged Behemoth, the entire Naga subspecies, Daemons that were perpetually stuck to walls – and anomalies regarding the process of turning into one.

He kicked Cor in the vain hope of getting a reaction out of the corpse, but there was nothing but a small spark that flicked off the body, and then nothing. Ignis had been one of these anomalies; apparently just being around the Accursed could cause a mutation. Most of these mutations sounded like they were in perpetual pain and retained some flicker of human consciousness – useful for when it would inevitably come to riling up the Chosen One to truly have nothing but the raw desire to drive several weapons into him, but Ardyn did not like it the slightest bit. He was, deep down, still a healer who wanted to take care of these people instead of cause this nonsense in the first place.

The entire clearing was desolate. Entire trees had been split by divine lightning, and the scattered dead and thoroughly deep-fried birds added a certain layer of irony to this. This looked more like something a Daemon would have done rather than the tracks that the actual Daemon had been making, but it had been one of the Six. Ardyn choked back a laugh as he slowly advanced towards the treeline that was untouched.

Somewhere behind him was Cor, most likely already back wherever Dreamers went when they breathed their last.

Ardyn’s goal was the other Dreamer that was sprawled in front of the trees lifelessly.

An unheard desire of getting revenge for an entire village, but rather than the train itself his goal had always been Aestus Aldercapt. It made Ardyn wonder if Verus had lived back in Niflheim at the time – he would never get to ask, and he wasn’t exactly sure what drove that man. Perhaps taking out the Daemon that had been Aestus was what would grant the unfortunate Dreamer eternal rest. He only kneeled down next to him quickly and made certain that none would see the Mark of the Dreamer that Verus had disliked so much.

With that, the Accursed whisked away into the sunset.

A week later he’d watch as people attempted to find him again, with a very pale and very anxious-looking prince standing in the middle of the clearing.

* * *

“… _Goddammit!”_

_A yell tore across the Haven, and the two men already sitting at the fire cringed._

“ _Aranea?”_

“ _No, what the fuck!”_

“ _What’s the matter?”_

“ _You’ve got to be kidding me! You’ve got to be absolutely fucking kidding me, Carbuncle, Bahamut, whoever the hell decided this!?”_

_Ignis got up slowly and walked over, apparently trying to soothe the trembling woman. “Aranea. Calm down and tell us what--”_

“ _He’s Cor! He’s Cor this time around!”_

“… _What?”_

_The lancer threw her arms up in the air and then dropped them. She looked tired. Very tired. Considering that she had just died, it wasn’t all that surprising, really, but… her statement confused both Ignis and Prompto._

“ _Cor. He was… several years younger than me, back when I was a live. Barely a teenager. Lives in Insomnia, has great ambitions and all that – granted, I helped with that in my life as his mentor. But his name. Ignis, Prompto… his name. It was Cor.”_

_Ignis sighed. “Be clear. His name is Cor.”_

“ _Are you actually that dumb or are you just playing the idiot? Cor Vigilis was reborn as_ **Cor** _Leonis!”_

_Silence._

_Being reborn with the name they had before they were Dreamers was usually a sign of being close to what they desired. Ignis and Prompto had been dead for a week both, nearly arriving at the same time. They had, in fact, died in the same accident, just not knowing that the other was involved. They’d both laughed about it awkwardly and then settled down to wait for the others as normally._

“ _But… I was Kenji. Prompto was called Carlos.”_

“ _And my name was Dion. But Cor, he… he was called Cor. He was also just twelve.”_

_A gust went through the place, which normally symbolised that Carbuncle was about to arrive. Aranea shuddered deeply, apparently disturbed by this. Ignis and Prompto looked at each other, then at Aranea._

_As usual a softly glowing creature padded onto the camping ground. But the sparkle was dimmed this time around for some reason, and Ignis narrowed his eyes. Something was extremely off here._

_It was Prompto who then gasped. “Guys, look! The sun’s… rising?”_

_Indeed, while they had been looking at Aranea and Carbuncle, the sun had started rising. It was barely more than a soft tint to the normally utterly black sky. But after hundreds of times seeing this darkness it had grown to be somewhat of a familiar and soothing view. It was always dark. That was the only constant._

_The only constant was vanishing away._

“Greetings.”

“ _You better explain this mess pronto, Carbuncle!”_

_A tilt of the head. The Carbuncle they always spoke to was blue, but they had heard of other variations existing._ “You are confused. We are here to banish these doubts – we come with a missive, an order if you like.”

_Ignis crossed his arms. “Who’s ordering who around, though? We do not exactly retain information. And we cannot be sent out again without Cor.”_

“… Incorrect. We bend to the law of the Draconian. His words are what gave us this power, his orders are what we follow. And we are here on his behest, speaking to Dreamers, including you. Those currently out will not hear this, but they do not need this information. It would greatly imbalance what is already in a fragile equilibrium.”

_Another gust went through the camp, and in the distance the sky turned red slowly. They couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the other Dreamers out there, possibly on their own at their camps, maybe waiting for someone to arrive at long last so they could be sent out again._

“The stage is nearly set. The King of Light will be born within a human lifetime, and we are to… send all of you out as support. It does not matter if you are part of a group that has not yet reunited here, it does not matter if you have just arrived here. You will all go, and all live in the same time as the King of Light. The era of Dreamers is over, and our last job is to send you out to make certain that dawn comes, just as it came here.”

* * *

Niflheim, again.

It was so easy to push them towards technology, for most of these people were more curious than the other countries. Perhaps it was because they did not overly worship any gods and were left out of the loop of strange powers – Lucis had the Crystal and the line of Lucis; Tenebrae had the Oracles, and even Accordo had the protection of the Hydraean most of the time.

The tide was calm. Eos seemed to be holding its breath.

And Ardyn felt it.

A smile flashed across his face.

“So, you’re finally getting ready to get on the stage, eh? Too bad I’ve been setting it the entire time. Perhaps t’would be wise to sprinkle some traps across it.”


	12. Cor - March on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if my depression, a family trip to hamburg, and the fact that episode gladio ruined this chapter's plot pretty substantially and left me with nothing but scraps i have to glue back together were all on the moon and killed me with a rock would that be fucked up or what

“What do you mean _you lost him?_ He’s a teenager, you can’t just _lose them,_ Clarus!”

“Incorrect, Regis, I effectively lost him.”

“I sincerely hope, for the sake of every child you might ever have, that you _never have child_ _ren_ _in the first place._ What are you standing around for like this?! He’s _my father’s guard_ _and technically your superior,_ move it! Orders! Chop chop!”

“Very… very well.”

* * *

Tensions were already high enough as they were, with the war having all but been brought to the Lucian doorstep, but what was currently transpiring in the throne room was something between sad and hilarious – but tense enough that the people in it could feel it.

“I have my objections about this, Your Highness.” It wasn’t often that the prince addressed his father like this – the last time had been a few years ago, although Cor himself was too young to remember why that had been. He watched the young prince sigh and shrug. “I know you only mean well, but he… he’s a child.”

“So are you.”

“Objections; I am of age unlike your protégée there. We are all but marching into a war zone, father, and none of us are particularly good at watching children, Cid aside.”

Cor would have loved to speak up and say that he definitely did not want to march alongside the prince, who was known for being peculiarly insufferable 99% of the time, but he had his manners and knew how to concede to protocol. And protocol demanded that he stood there rooted to the ground, in parade rest, waiting for the exasperated prince to admit defeat and take him along as royal orders demanded.

He could have thought of at least seven things that sounded more fun than being stuck with Prince Regis and his followers, one of which included being locked into a haunted manor with Monica Elshett at night as a bloodthirsty Daemon followed their every step. Indeed, anything with Monica sounded better than anything with Prince Regis and Clarus Amicitia – and that had to mean something; Monica was not exactly known for being a fountain of fun. None of the younger trainees were, really, and Cor was not going to exclude himself from that… but the prince was another monster altogether.

It wasn’t even entirely known what he was up to, and Cor definitely did not want to find out first-hand. Alas, he took his orders from King Mors, and said king had not gotten into a long discussion about having more than one properly trained member of the Crownsguard along for the travels was safer than simply one, an engineer and a friend who just happened to be a marksman of some sort.

He’d phased out of the conversation when they were discussing whether Cor was a child or not. The prince seemed to insist he was, whereas the king claimed he wasn’t. Judging by the look Clarus Amicitia shot him, the silent people in the room were curious about his own opinion.

Not exactly something one would ask of a child, but Cor remained as perfectly still as he could. His arms were falling asleep as he stood there perfectly straight, however.

It was a known fact that the king and the prince butted heads pretty often, but this was the first time he’d seen it in action. Half an hour passed with increasingly louder voices, with Clarus Amicitia clicking his tongue several times and trying to soothe the prince – the King’s Shield, the other Amicitia in the room, doing the same except targeted at the king – and with Cor nearly breaking protocol to tell these hard-headed royals his opinion. None of which happened, he soothed his nerves down several times by reminding himself that this was the biggest opportunity he would get in his life, and furthermore had been offered to him instead of just any other Crownsguard-in-training. The look on Monica’s face would be priceless and he almost wished he could be there to see it, but by the time she’d learn of where he had vanished off to he would probably already be out of Insomnia.

Finally, after an hour of arguing, the prince tossed his arms in the air. He looked completely and thoroughly exasperated. “Fine, I yield. We’ll permit him to come along.”

* * *

“Where would he even have gone?”

“...”

“… Clarus. You know more than ‘I just lost him’, don’t you.”

“...”

“Amicitia, I order you to--”

“Proving Grounds.”

“ _Fuck._ ”

“Language, Your Highness.”

* * *

Any other would have possibly paid attention to the thin wailing that rose to a chorus of shrieks the further down the path went. Other people would have paid attention to the fact that there were disembodied voices bemoaning the loss of life and the lack of skill, the wasteful weakness that enveloped all children of Lucis these days.

Cor Leonis certainly tried to phase them out. He succeeded with it, as well.

Thus did the voices of the former Crownsguard from the time of the Founder fall upon deaf ears. The voices wailed on as they had when Cassius had descended here, did the same as they had done to unsettle Nero Amicitia a good hundred or so years ago. Ironically enough, after finishing droves of undead bodies, eventually the voices stopped. They did not pick up when he drove the creature Cassius had thought to be a zombified Phoenix off the side of the large bridge-like area with its wings quite literally clipped.

He had been trained by several excellent fighters and their combat training had all but found a very determined target. Cor had been raised to believe that anyone with enough skill could get as far as becoming the King’s Shield, and the fact that no Amicitia or any other undocumented people that had ever gone here had returned alive was enough to pick his interest while they spoke. Getting past Clarus Amicitia had been a different beast altogether, on the other hand.

They had started out rough. Very rough. The prince and his companions were not pleased about having a Crownsguard, the youngest Crownsguard of them all, along. Cor was not pleased to have been tied to a group of people very unlikely to actively employ strategy or do something bigger than sneaking behind enemy lines to wreak havoc there. Tensions were running high at the beginning about a month ago, until they eventually smoothed down after a few battles. It was still tense, but not as tense as it could have been.

Thus, accidentally overhearing that conversation about the Proving Grounds was the most interesting thing that Cor had heard – and Clarus had immediately seen through the way Cor tried to set the evening and night watch.

‘There’s no point in dying pointlessly in there,’ he’d said, most likely referring to the fact that they were already on their way back to Insomnia due to the untimely demise of Clarus’ father. The future Shield of the King was now all but the current Shield, and was needed back in the capital – no matter how much the prince protested.

Naturally Cor had taken off, and entered the area as fast as he could. By the time the prince got up to begrudgingly get ready to continue their trip back to Insomnia and realise that he was missing, he had already entered the trials and therefore forced a magic wall to stop people from interrupting.

By the time Cor was halfway through the canyon, Prince Regis slapped Clarus as they stood in front of a sealed entrance.

It was about that time that he realised he was marching with his head held high and nothing but the wind to accompany him. The voices had finally fallen silent except for the occasional whisper – it was as if they watched in awe as he proceeded to cut through their numbers. Not that it would matter in the long run; they were by any means undead not unlike Daemons. And Daemons reappeared in the dark, even if they vanished in the sun, until someone cut them down to size.

Perhaps that was why the entire region was nestled against rock and in the dark. Perhaps these just were Daemons.

A cold shudder ran down his spine as he proceeded ever onwards, eyes on the goal. Only one thing mattered, and that was proving that he was worthy of being called a prodigy as they did back in Insomnia. He’d made a promise. And Cor Leonis was going to keep that promise.

* * *

“He rushes ahead with near reckless abandon.”

“Beyond the gate are the blood of the king and the blood of the shield. Should we not permit them in to take home their morsel?”

The voices had been silent for so long. They had taken turns tormenting the last Amicitia to march into these grounds with near sadistic glee – he had to agree that the long periods of peace were turning the children weaker than they used to be. But this was a far cry from the people they used to be. Perhaps time just turned all of them cruel in sheer spite; perhaps that was what the Founder had gone for from the very beginning. A cure after he had taken out the only man capable of curing the Scourge? It seemed to foolish in hindsight. So very, very foolish, even if he had acted under a divine decree.

He simply raised a hand to silence them once more.

“As per the rules, one entering the trials cannot withdraw. As per the rules, we cannot permit anyone to interrupt. Neither the blood of the king nor the blood of the shield have the right to come barging in to take back the challenger.”

It had been so long since the last challenger worthy of his attention. In fact the last one had been a young woman, a few years after Cassius had demanded answers and gone down with an honourable death in a grand battle. She had come barging in with the same vigour and reckless abandon as this boy, with a fire in her eyes and passion seemingly running through her veins. It had been more of a war of attrition they had fought out, and Gilgamesh had to admit that she could have won had she not lost her patience after four hours. Youthful pride had gotten the best of her – perhaps this was going to be the same case.

On the other hand he clearly felt the energy surrounding the child that was drawing ever closer. It was similar to Cassius – Prompto – so it was easy to guess that this one had been one of the Healer’s retainers. The energy had changed since the last time he had felt it, a strange sense of finality wafted through the area. A god’s blessing, even just a demigod’s blessing, carried traces of the will of said deity. And the energy of Carbuncle that followed this boy around had a certain feeling of foreboding.

An easy guess – the cycle would be coming to an end sooner rather than later. Near two thousand years in the canyon, and the chosen lamb for the slaughter would be appointed in this or the next generation. Perhaps the prince trying to get into the canyon would be the one. Perhaps his child would be, or in an off event their child. But it would end before the line reached a hundred and fifteen. That much was clear.

“Demand they withdraw. Tell them to return when the sun rises; at dawn they will either find a successful combatant or nothing at all as answer for what remains of an unskilled fool.”

They scattered, and he watched them vanish. Doubtlessly some of them went to torment the challenger as he approached the final trial, but he also knew that at least one of them would tell the prince and the shield what they needed to do.

Gilgamesh remembered what Prompto told him. That death meant little to Dreamers, for they would always be back. He would have fought this challenger fair and square simply because dying here would not set this one back. But there was something about the way Carbuncle’s energy felt that made Gilgamesh ponder on the meaning of life and death for a Dreamer. They were getting ready for something. They would most likely be immediately be reborn upon death, in preparation for the birth of the Chosen One. A hundred deaths would be possible between this day and the day the Chosen fought the Accursed, a hundred deaths weighing down on their minds. Prompto himself had already sounded tired all those years ago, so very tired. Dying and living and dying again tired them out the longer they went with their desires not fulfilled. Dreamers could go just about as mad as people staying in a canyon for two millennia did.

Perhaps killing this challenger would be a bad idea – but the unskilled deserved not the life they had been given. Especially not those that desired to serve the crown. The crown was too heavy for one person alone, and the shield would have to care about that person more than about their own life. Their own family, even. Nothing but their liege mattered.

Gilgamesh remained still as ever when he heard steady footsteps. Most children that had come here in the past on a fool’s errand had been tired out beyond belief by the time they got here – if they got here at all. But this one either managed to hide his exhaustion or he truly had not been swayed by the trials that much.

The latter was obviously the case, he realised when he looked into the youthful face of what looked quite a lot like Cor Vigilis. Much as with Cassius looking a lot like, but not quite exactly like Prompto Gemmae, he was looking into a familiar face with the details all wrong. Vigilis and him had trained together when they had been about this age, and he clearly remembered that teenager with his focused but warm grey eyes. These ones were blue. The hair colour was wrong, even though it was still as brown as ever.

The weapon was wrong, too. It seemed almost comically too large for this boy who had not yet hit his teenage growth spurt – and Vigilis had always carried a scimitar.

“I greet thee, challenger.”

Surprisingly enough, the boy returned the greeting with a bow but not a single word. He clearly acknowledged Gilgamesh as the superior in this situation; something the Blademaster would not have guessed after this brusque and reckless descend. He would have expected a rude comment, an attack before the duel began.

Not respect.

“You have permission to speak, if you so desire.”

A shake of the head. It was clear that despite all the respect for the superior, this boy burned for this duel.

“So be it, then. Your final trial begins.”

* * *

They returned at the crack of dawn, as the voices had demanded. They could have gained quite a lot of ground back to Insomnia, just as Mors had ordered them to, but Regis absolutely refused to return home without the Crownsguard – or at least something to remember the teenager by.

Clarus expected to find nothing. He had not even remotely tried to keep his future king’s spirits high, because there was absolutely no chance that Cor Leonis would live through these trials. There was a reason he simply refused to listen to all the chatter about how he should at least go there and chicken out later just as some Amicitias had done in the past.

Thus, when they came around the area and smelled that intense pang of blood, Clarus Amicitia’s heart nearly stopped.

The voices had said that there would either be a victor – or nothing at all.

He didn’t even have the chance to react before the prince set off in a sprint. “Cor!”

The boy was indeed lying there, bloodied and beaten, unconscious to boot – was that a slit across his throat – and with his weapon simply missing. A weapon that looked much older and was slightly rusted had been thrown next to the unconscious teen, and the awkwardly bent arm and strangely twisted fingers told exactly how that duel had gone. The Blademaster had broken Cor’s entire left arm, down to the fingers. Which meant that he had put up a valiant fight – and gave a pathetic image.

“Clarus! Come on, we need to stop the bleeding, we need to--”

“Regis, he… he’s alive.”

“Well, he won’t be for much longer unless you help me!”

* * *

“Have you heard?”

“Of course I have! It’s absolutely incredible!”

“Nothing out there seems to kill him while people like Lady Dion died for much less...”

“She did teach him…”

“It’s as if he is immortal.”

“Definitely feels like immortality...”

* * *

Cor the Immortal.

He gave up trying to avoid that nickname by the time he turned 20. Broken bones mended, slashed skin grew back together as well – the only thing that had gotten a serious dent had been his pride. Just about two months after Prince Regis had dragged him back to Insomnia and Clarus had been appointed the next Shield Cor tried to follow the prince around once more. Even with crutches he managed to withstand the glare the prince had shot him, and claimed that with Clarus Amicitia bound to the king and the throne it would be foolhardy to send a willing Crownsguard away.

Their travels continued once he got rid of the crutches. Niflheim was getting more restless and relentless in their pursuit of… something.

By the time he was 20 the war had come to a stalemate once again and his dreams started being filled with the roar of fire and the crackle of lightning. He tried paying it no mind. He was duty-bound to the crown; not even Monica’s teasing that turned into legitimate concern the more sleep he lost could change that. He had a job to do.

He had… a job to do. That was what he told himself.

All of that crumbled for about three months once he remembered after seeing a boy called Ignis Scientia and hearing of a young mercenary called Aranea Highwind. But, as he realised, it would be better to hold up the facade. There was nothing here. He was Cor Leonis. A member of the Crownsguard, not a royal retainer. This child who would accompany Regis’ and Clarus’ son had nothing to do with this yet. Yet.

It always changed, it always went wrong. Regis Lucis Caelum was on the verge of tears by the time they learned that little Noctis would be the one Bahamut chose to come marching into Insomnia one day under a sky without stars wrapped in eternal darkness, the one who would strike down the Accursed and be led to the throne like a lamb to the slaughter. Ignis Scientia’s parents were dead, the boy was trying to keep his composure. Fire, thunder, rainfall. He covered his Mark with a hand and stared into the mirror. They had just received word of Tenebrae having fallen, the king being on his way back to Lucis, to Insomnia. No word of the Oracle’s children – but she herself was dead. He could almost imagine the fire eating through the room, the soft voices and the dulled screaming outside. It was always the same. Yet he lived through all this nonsense, even through an encounter with General Glauca out in the field, somewhere in Cleigne. They kept saying he nearly died – but he didn’t.

Cor the Immortal.

Insomnia burned, just as he had all these years ago – and he couldn’t even find it in him to do anything but stare at the night sky being scorched by the fires of this city. The stage had been deliberately set years and years _and years_ ago, he now realised. Even long before he had taken off into the Proving Grounds.

Aranea – Dion – had said that there would be trials up ahead shortly before she died. That Cor would have to prove stronger than the rest to make it through these. But finally her last words made sense – that she regretted that she would not be there.

Once more he covered his Mark. The phone rang.

Prince Noctis would have to walk a long, hard road. Cor’s throat was dry, and he was rather grateful his voice was not hoarse.

“About the king – it’s true.”

This would be a long, long march straight into the dragon’s maw. Surprisingly enough, he felt prepared for it for once in his life. In all his lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> following this chapter we're entering entirely speculative territory. if youre reading this after episode prompto or even episode ignis released, by the time all of this was posted i was waiting for stormblood and episode prompto, haha;;
> 
> in other news, shoutout to jonphaedrus and thetealord for finishing doe eyes!


	13. Aranea - A hop, a skip, a jump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> other chapter title drafts were "Leap Wishes" and "Dragging it on, Dragoon"  
> i really need to stop listening to dod3 and nier/nier automata ost as background noise

It wasn’t exactly a dream position. Many people attempted to, but never succeeded with becoming what people in the past had called a dragoon. It was a Tenebraen study, she learned, but it had long since been assimilated into Niflheim. Even long before the empire officially took over the Oracle’s country. Granted, not many people learned it, and it was exclusively seen as the trade of a mercenary and therefore not desired at all, but the moment she heard about it and saw one of these mercenaries, Aranea Highwind’s mind was set.

She wanted to be a dragoon.

It wasn’t like people particularly cared what an orphan claimed, and seeing that the military usually took in children that wanted to learn, she was quickly allowed to learn it at the tender age of seven. Niflheim needed people capable of fighting seeing that they had all but entered full-out war with the Kingdom of Lucis at this point, and Aranea was eager to learn. Nimble and clever, and all in all a terrible, terrible loner. It were the perfect marks for a dragoon, because they usually fought on their own with naught but the sky above their heads and their spears in their hands. A niche that was effectively made for her, the orphan with nothing but skill.

Still, the training regimen was hard. Very hard. Especially for a child like her – most people training to be a dragoon were in their teens. They also failed ridiculously often, while Aranea remained on top of her game despite her age. She was focused, had her eyes set on a goal, and was proud. Perhaps too proud.

A dragoon had to be perfect in nearly every department. They had to be skilled tacticians since they mostly worked on their own; a single mistake could lead to their deaths on solo missions. They had to be strong enough to overcome most, if not all obstacles; after all they were essentially guerilla forces when employed in a battlefield and therefore did not mingle much with other soldiers or mercenaries. They also had to have enough common sense to not end up starving labour hands in the streets of Gralea; skill could only get one so far if they lacked the wit to make certain their wages were sustainable. Aranea was repeatedly praised for all of this, especially for her sharp wit and her almost ruthless ability to go commando even at age ten. Three years of harsh training were starting to pay off.

At least they would have, if she truly had the ability to leap as dragoons were supposed to.

Surely it has to do with age, they tried to convince her. She would be able to jump as she was supposed to once she grew and had enough strength in her still growing body. Aranea hated it, she hated the fact that she was land-locked and watching the others take off. The war often came to a stalemate before one side chose a risky tactic that either paid off or backfired terribly. At least with MT forces the losses were relatively unimportant, most Niffs surmised. A soldier or a mercenary lost was a valiant loss in the great picture – a lost MT was quite a bit of money down the drain, but nothing that could not be salvaged somehow. Aranea watched her training companions being deployed. Most of them never returned, despite their ability to leap higher, faster, further than the others.

Prodigies were wasting away, and she was fully aware of that.

At the very least her age meant that she wouldn’t be deployed any time soon. Even at age ten she was fully aware of how a war was fought from the aggressor’s side, she knew that there were more than faceless mooks being cut down. Probably even the MTs had faces underneath these terrible masks, whether they vanished in the sunlight or not.

She didn’t think too much of it.

The only person she knew that actually, truly cared about this was her instructor, who always watched the troopers when there was a deployment. He looked displeased, if not straight up worried most of the time. She knew it had something to do with how most people involved in the military had a distaste for MTs in general, but the worry on his face was rather hard to ignore. Usually he snapped back to his usual calm smile right after the last MT vanished.

“Why do you always look at them like that?” She asked one afternoon, once the airships had vanished on the horizon.

“Ah,” he shrugged, “I’m just imagining them as… actual soldiers. Most of these things never come back, usually since they run into Cor Leonis. It’s not exactly a human loss, but… still.”

She didn’t really understand what he meant with that.

* * *

“That is unusual. Most first-time deployments get really nervous on board of an airship.”

She shifted. Her instructor was smiling at her.

“Not that that’s a bad thing, Aranea. On the other hand, as long as a dragoon is in control of their fear, it can make a valuable asset in battle.”

“The only thing I’m scared of is...”

“Not being able to jump. Not to worry; this is all but a small mission.”

They were a handful rookies together with even fewer instructors. Aranea felt very bad about having Magni along for the ride, especially since his son had just been born. Something about this mission felt wrong, but she couldn’t put a finger on it. For the last three weeks her dreams had been full of fire, accompanied by a strange light that looked a suspicious lot like nights in Tenebrae. After all, Oracles were mages in a world largely without magic – perhaps some floating and glowing wisps was part of what magical forces they used in fights.

It seemed rather unlike Emperor Aldercapt to send a handful of children still in training to a battlefield. Even back in the orphanage people only spoke of the man in high tones; most of the teenagers back in the training quarters had been talking about swearing their loyalty to him once they were full-fledged solo mercenaries. The pay wasn’t bad in the army, even as hired hand just bolstering an MT attack squad. She’d crunched over some numbers in her head before – it was very lucrative.

Beside her was her instructor, and across the airship sat a bunch of foot soldiers in training. She’d been having a staring contest with one who seemed to be about her age, and he had a mean glare. After about an hour he gave up and looked away, and 10-year-old Aranea Highwind started grinning. At the very least that meant that this guy knew that she could easily beat him, even if it just had been a staring contest.

The entire airship was eerily quiet. A certain sense of foreboding filled the air, and all of them started to get nervous. It made her instructor raise an eyebrow, especially after he had commented on how calm everyone was in here. Eventually Aranea took a deep breath.

“Shouldn’t you be home with your wife and son?”

He laughed. “We will be back in Niflheim faster than you can say ‘MT Trooper’”. 

* * *

 

It was the boy she had had a staring contest with who yanked her out of the line of fire – literal fire. “Move it, dragoon; those are Crownsguard!”

She let out a soft whimper; the fire was just like the fire in her dreams, eating through the surrounding plants and with the dulled screaming reaching her eyes. They had been supposed to just be a reconnaissance squadron with a handful trainees learning the ropes of on-field action, but instead they had run into a small group of Lucians.

Somewhere in the distance she saw her instructor, lance in hand. His opponent was a man with a katana.

That was the last time she saw Magni.

* * *

A few years passed. She was now sixteen, and easily the strongest person around – still not able to jump around nimbly like all her teachers and fellow trainees, but at least she could do something.

She passed the exams with flying colours – just not able to jump properly. That didn’t seem to bother anyone, since Aranea had all but been offered a position in a group of mercenaries by someone who had known her former instructor.

The pro of being a mercenary was that they were free to go as they pleased, and could deny orders by just not accepting the job. It was a liberty that not many people in Niflheim had, especially not since the recent demand for soldiers and people to help the army in general. The war had long since ground to a stalemate that just wouldn’t go, especially since the Wall remained as steadfast as ever.

They had accepted a job to scout these lines, and the Wall simply shone in the distance. They’d heard that King Regis Lucis Caelum held it up like his father before him, and the last time the Crownsguard had actively acted outside of the Wall was the supposedly small mission Aranea had been sent on. Even just thinking back to it made her blood run cold with regret; if she had just managed to get away from that other boy she could have _helped_ Magni somehow. It just didn’t strike her that she would have just gone missing or would have died alongside him.

Thus, she paced around the Wall with the others anxiously watching what happened alongside the almost comically large walls that King Regis was building within. Perhaps it was just simple paranoia – as far as Aranea knew that man had never left his city and he had a six year old son. A six year old son that had nearly died at the hands of a Daemon, a six year old son that had to have been taken to the Oracle for help. Aranea scowled.

Many people in Niflheim too could have used that kind of help. Infections and disappearances ran rampant, but due to the alliance between Tenebrae and Niflheim there was no way they could ask the Oracle for help. Even less so since the woman had died in the attack to fully take over Tenebrae and perhaps catch the elusive Lucian prince and his even more elusive son. Apparently that child had a big role to play, one that had been set by the _gods_ or something of the kind.

It all sounded so ridiculous.

Inside the Wall, on top of the stone wall, stood a handful men and women. They were dressed in black, which all but meant that the Crownsguard was watching them. Usually the Crownsguard did nothing to mercenaries as long as they were outside the Wall – not that any had ever gotten _inside –_ but something about that group in particular made Aranea nervous. Perhaps it was the man in front of the others, with his back to the mercenaries. The way he stood, the weapon by his side…

She froze and trembled ever so slightly. One of her comrades put a hand on her shoulder and gently urged her to continue walking.

“But, that man--”

“Is Cor Leonis. We’d all prefer to avoid provoking a man they call ‘the Immortal’, and it’s not part of our job description. We are to find a woman that might have gotten here a few years ago, not provoking a fight.”

Eventually they realised they were getting nowhere and their leader turned around to wave at the people on the wall. A woman waved back.

“Excuse me!”

“What?” She sounded kind of surprised that someone from the outside would dare talking to those on the inside. Beside her the man they called the Immortal shifted slightly.

“We don’t mean to impose, and we are going to leave after this, but we’ve got a question, Crownsguard!”

The five of them stuck their heads together for a small discussion, until the woman they had spoken first to apparently shrugged and turned back to the mercenaries. “Alright. What do you want?”

“Sir, is it really wise--”

Aranea was interrupted by one of the older women in her group covering her mouth with a hand. Her leader tried to shoot a smile up the wall, even though it probably wasn’t all that visible through the Wall.

“We’re looking for a woman who might’ve come up here a few years ago. She’s got something to do with our employer, and we’re just curious if you or the Wall watches have seen something in the last few years that looked like a Niff woman with a child around these parts?”

It was the man called Cor who answered them. “None of the like.”

The senior mercenaries stuck their heads together for a moment and discussed something, then the leader turned back to look at the Crownsguard on the wall inside. “Thank you. We will be going, then.”

That was the last time Aranea ever saw the Wall.

* * *

Eventually they were hired by the government. It wasn’t unusual – almost every band had been hired by someone with their hands in the government military in the last few years. It was as if they were still preparing for a large-scale war despite the fact there hadn’t been large-scale battles involving manpower since the approach to a region called Galahd.

23-year-old Aranea Highwind, still called ‘the dragoon who could not jump’, swung her legs onto the desk.

“Something ‘bout this stinks.”

Maybe it were the dreams filled with faces and voices she didn’t remember when she woke up, the fact that fire was starting to make her nervous, or something else entirely, but recently she had been getting skittish. And that Chancellor inspired anything but confidence. Something about that man threw her off, worse than anything else in Niflheim at the moment. Even having a staring contest with a MT sounded more pleasant than spending more than five minutes around this man.

Sure, Emperor Aldercapt trusted him, and a large portion of the military too seemed oddly enamoured with Ardyn Izunia – but Aranea wouldn’t trust him further than she could throw him. As a matter of fact she could probably throw him very far, but that was beside the point.

The man made her angry. Everything about him was infuriating, from the hilariously outlandish clothing to the fact he acted as if he was the main character in an old Tenebraen stage play. Pompous acting that all but belied a shoddily-written villain without second thoughts other than he was designed to be evil.

“He’s fake as hell.”

In the room were just four other people, all around her age. One of them had turned out to have been the boy she’d had a staring contest on an airship all these years ago – he had immediately recognised her and attempted to win another staring contest. She’d defeated Biggs Callux once again, and he’d all but shot her a crooked grin.

“Don’t say that to his face; he’s gonna have you chopped in half for that.”

“Ugh. I’ll say that to his face and take that chopping with hysterical laughter. It’d go just too well with his acting; we’d be in a cheesy-ass play where he’s the villain. Watch me, Callux.”

She didn’t do anything like that. Yet.

But Ardyn Izunia was cutting it close.

* * *

“So, we were on that plane together.”

“Yes? What about it?”

“I remember your instructor never made the return trip with us.”

“...”

“I looked into it out of curiosity.”

“You… what? Fucking hell, asshole, his son was just newborn--”

“He didn’t die then. He just never made the return trip.”

“…!?”

* * *

She was 27 now. Easily one of the most-feared people in the army, although she preferred being called a mercenary. High-up mercenaries were called Commodore, so instead of Commander she insisted that they called her that. Even though her former band had been all but vaporised in the battle for Galahd – she had been the only survivor from her squad, hence the promotion – she still saw herself as mercenary. That was what being a dragoon was about, technically. And while there were no mercenaries left that were _not_ employed by the government she still held herself true to that oath she had sworn. Her new group was just her, Biggs and his friend Wedge, and a handful people from their group that had all but fallen apart since they had agreed to becoming an official, unpaid part of the government.

Aranea Highwind had not expected to be glared down by a little government rat like Loqi Tummelt with such intense dismay.

“What do you mean you people encountered Leonis the other day?”

“Exactly what we said. He gave Biggs ‘n’ Wedge over there a good beating, but left them alive and retreated when the Kingsglaive arrived. I think he was acting solo, and it was just an unfortunate run-in. Any problems, kid?”

After years of wondering she finally understood why exactly Magni Tummelt’s wife had never reacted to his alleged death in the field. She’d heard the stories of what people saw, including Aranea’s part of the tale. And thus she had raised her son with nothing but utter hatred for Cor Leonis, the man who had allegedly murdered his father in cold blood.

It didn’t help that getting a position in the military was easy, so very easy, these days. She certainly didn’t like having been made a babysitter for her former instructor’s rabid child, especially since she learned what he had truly done that day.

It had been a trap. A trap he had used to whisk away into the night. He’d died to a Daemon several years later and his body had never been retrieved, but he had effectively used a bunch of children as body shield to flee. Cor Leonis had squeezed that answer out of him and had been so appalled that he had let the man go and made certain that as many trainees made it home in one piece as he could without being accused of treason. She’d gained an understanding of how the Immortal acted after Biggs had disclosed this information to her, and she’d come to appreciate his and Wedge’s companionship a lot. Even though they and all the others were technically her subordinates, she found herself growing closer to them – like friends.

Friendship for mercenaries was usually something that lead to death. It was what had wiped out her band before.

She dismissed Tummelt’s complaints with a snarl and told him to stand down. She didn’t have the patience to deal with him.

“...”

“Good. Now go.”

“Tch. Says the flightless dragoon.”

That insult managed to hit its target. It had been years over years, but she had still not managed a jump. Not as graceful as the few other dragoons that remained. Certainly not as graceful as the traitor Magni Tummelt had managed in the time she had been his protégée. It were tiny skips. But never a jump.

She knew the landing perfectly, she could dive out of an airship with no issues and land square on her feet as expected from dragoons. She just couldn’t leap. People called her the earthbound one, which she could usually ignore. It didn’t matter that much most of the time, but… flightless dragoon was what people usually called the ones that died in battle. It was an insult that hurt her deeply.

Deeply enough to start her training regimen all over again. She would be able to jump just to spite her old instructor and his bratty son. She would be a dragoon perfectly capable of jumping; she set her eyes on old records and legends instead of just people that she had known during her training. No. The sky was quite literally the limit for her.

The dreams she’d had had stopped ever since Galahd.

Thus she was very surprised to have one where the plains below were quite literally on fire, but above her were only stars. A soft voice was speaking to her as the speaker held her hand, but she couldn’t make out who that was. The voice felt familiar and left her to wake with a pang of nostalgia – when she realised that she had been in Tenebrae it just confused her even more.

The next dreams were even more confusing. A city, a group of people, a familiar voice but again no face to go with it. Campfires.

Her training regimen had no results. She remained as flightless as before, much to her frustration. Her 28th birthday was coming closer and closer and she was simply getting angrier and angrier. She’d tried her best, had followed every rule, every comment, every suggestion. Nothing worked. Nothing ever worked. She remained the one who had to climb onto the airships last instead of being the first one on it by virtue if simply jumping there. She skewered Daemons, enemies, all with reckless abandon and nothing more but the desire to soar up like the few other dragoons she worked with.

Even the darn Chancellor caught wind of that, and he made it his personal job to torment and taunt her about it. She hated that guy, she hated him so much. But he was, theoretically speaking, her superior. And Aranea followed rules, just as she simply refused to work outside of her wage. There was no point in doing what she wouldn’t get paid for – that was what a dragoon was supposed to be doing instead of following the Chancellor straight into hell like a duckling following its Scourge-afflicted mother.

The last dream she had was one where she was sitting in a library. The library was on fire, and she barely made out three other people on a fire on the other side of the wall of fire. Beside her was yet another faceless person, with something strangely glimmering on their shoulder.

“Get ready. You’ve got your role to play, as do we all. Beyond the Wall, beyond the horizon.”

When Aranea Highwind awoke her head was pounding. But the next time she saw the Chancellor she simply stared at him before bowing in a way that was only used in Lucis. Most people in the hallway gave her a funny look – just two didn’t. One was the scandalised-looking Chancellor Ardyn Izunia – what a last name to choose! – and the former Tenebraen prince Ravus Nox Fleuret. Of course that man would recognise a Lucian bow meant for royalty, but Aranea simply cracked a lopsided grin and marched off.

Finally knowing what the hell was going on and what had caused this domino effect of people abandoning post or straight up vanishing made her mood better than ever. The dreams stopped once more and her memories were fuzzy at best and barely comprehensible at worst. But finally she remembered that Carbuncle had sent her her for a reason, and Bahamut be damned, she hated it.

At the very least her dislike for how quickly her job deteriorated from a Commodore with a lot of respect to someone who was out in the field catching ‘specimens’ quite literally gave her wings.

18 years after she had first wished she had the ability to leap like any other dragoon, she did it. She clung to the airship that had nearly left her to die in the field to a winged Behemoth, with Biggs Callux and Wedge Kincaid desperately trying to pull her in.

“Lady A! Oh, good grief, you’re alright!”

She was just laughing hysterically. She’d finally learned how to jump, and that entirely out of spite.

The look on Ardyn’s face when he saw her return with the rest of her merry band of mercenaries was more than worth it.

* * *

Two familiar faces, the prince, and a meathead. It looked so stupidly familiar that Aranea just cracked a grin up on her perch. A prince on the run out in Lucis, with a tactician, a commoner-turned-Crownsguard and a specifically trained meathead that would throw their body between the prince and whatever attacked them.

It was an ironic echo of way back when she, Ignis and Cor had followed Ardyn around – except now Ignis and Cor were on Izunia’s side, and she had Prompto’s role of being the other royal’s little puppet. She continued grinning as she leapt off her perch and pinned the prince down.

“Hello there, pretty boy.”


	14. Ignis - Echo, Echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> local fanfic author remembers she can count the chapters her fanfic will have with her fingers if she wanted to

“Y’know… that thing on your arm looks a little like that charm dad gave me.”

“I assure you, it’s nothing of the sort, Noct. On the other hand, Lady Lunafreya’s dog has brought this.”

“Ah! Ignis, no! Please, tell me you didn’t look in it!”

“I have manners, Noct. I didn’t.”

“Swear it! Swear it on… swear it on Carbuncle!”

“I swear it on Carbuncle.”

* * *

He looked like a deer caught in the headlights, judging from the exasperated glance the king shot his shield.

“Let him go, Clarus.”

Ignis Scientia was not one for snooping. Not one for skipping class, not one for shirking his duties. All he had done, in just a moment of letting himself get too carried away, was ripping his shirt with Clarus Amicitia close by. Noctis had once more pointed out his birthmark and immediately offered getting him a replacement shirt – but the Shield of the King had instead tossed Ignis a jacket and said he wanted him to come with him.

Ignis desperately tried to remember what he had done. He’d perhaps been giving Noctis too many sweets lately, but according to the prince he was getting closer to what that sweet from Tenebrae had tasted like. He hadn’t missed anything, no appointments, no meetings, nothing. He’d been perfectly on time, and perfectly not doing overtime unless baking counted as overtime. He hadn’t offended any officials, hadn’t spilled royal secrets. He’d just managed to rip his thin summer shirt while outside in the garden with the 13-year-old prince who was on his summer break.

Ignis stared at the floor. The tiles here were so nicely polished. Also, etiquette demanded he did not look at the king unless allowed to. Beside him Clarus Amicitia sighed and let him go.

His head had spun a million possibilities by this point, but he never expected the king to sigh as well. “Ignis, you can look up. You’re not in trouble.”

The king looked as tired as ever, perhaps even slightly more worn out than last time Ignis had seen him. It wasn’t the throne room Clarus had dragged him into, but just some smaller side-room. A side-room where a handful books were lined on the shelves, and just four seats were dotted in the otherwise empty and rather dark room. It looked more like a private library or a room where one sought peace and quiet from the Citadel instead of something official. Which definitely meant that Ignis was not in trouble.

He exhaled slowly and bowed before looking up.

Something about the book the king was holding made Ignis feel rather uneasy. He had no idea what book it was, even the title remained a complete mystery to him, but something about it made his heartbeat increase. It made him nauseous. Thankfully enough the king put it away with yet another tired sigh.

“Clarus, are you really quite sure that what you saw was truly there?”

“Yes, Regis, I wouldn’t be making that up. It looks just like hers.”

* * *

He stared at himself in the mirror every so often. That infuriating mark on his skin that looked completely unassuming unless someone looked closer at it was a curse he’d borne since the day he had been born. Ever since that day in that small room he’d known what it meant. Ignis knew a lot more than he probably should have at this point.

Much like Alacris before him he started looking into it. Even though most of the books made him nauseous – he understood what that meant. Ignis Scientia had once before, in another life, researched this issue, and apparently had not exactly made his peace with it in that life. Small things, small reactions finally started making sense now that he knew what to pin them on.

The king had, ever so slowly, explained. The royal family always knew what a Dreamer was, and how to proceed with them. There were just certain people in a country that _knew_ , and the general way of proceeding with a Dreamer outside of Lucis was putting them to death, to return them to the cycle. Whoever had started this had clearly tried antagonising Carbuncle and therefore Bahamut – the only exception of this rule was Lucis, which was founded and led by staunch believers of the mythos surrounding the Draconian. Noctis had deliberately not been taught about Dreamers.

When Ignis asked why, both the King and Clarus had sighed.

“He’s the Chosen. Considering the sudden influx of Dreamers we also noticed all across Eos, it stands to reason to believe that they have been sent out as support for the planet and Noctis himself.”

He studied it after that. Just as a side-study. A thing to do in his free time, when he wasn’t trying to bake. Often he did so while baking, too. Just books and notes, the latter neatly ordered in a folder he kept rather hidden. The books themselves he always put back to where he got them from, or put them out of immediate reach. It wasn’t exactly a hobby he was proud of or happy with but Ignis was led by something some people would call morbid fascination.

Reading this did not remind him of anything, other than the general unsettled feeling he had whenever he came across an oddly familiar book. But it was interesting to say the very least. People that lived all across the times just because they had a desire they wished to see completed, no matter the cost. People who sometimes had mundane wishes, who sometimes had wishes that could conclude in saving the world entirely if they just got to finish them. He learned what people knew of failure conditions – and that people simply didn’t know what happened when a Dreamer succeeded with their mission other than assuming they got removed from the cycle and were brought to what was the afterlife in Eos. Assumedly.

He learned that royalty was under the protection of Carbuncle until their time truly was up – it explained how Noctis had survived such grievous injuries years ago. It made Ignis gag and he tossed the book aside; it all sounded so cruel. Keeping royalty around until they had done their job, and most of them were fully aware that they should have died. Some of them were driven insane by that knowledge – one of the people explicitly mentioned by that was Emil Lucis Caelum II, the Builder.

Normal Dreamers could just lose all hope and become all but empty husks when they gave up their goals, and Ignis found himself lying awake for one night in cold sweat. What if that happened to him? What if it had nearly happened to him before?

He had no way of knowing, and other than the vague smell of dust and the most fleeting sensation of fire he remembered nothing. He didn’t want to remember anything.

Eventually he started wondering where the king and Noctis had theirs. It had been said that royalty had its own version of the Mark. Whoever the mysterious ‘she’ was that Clarus Amicitia had mentioned was also around, which alone made four people he knew under Carbuncle’s eyes. It filled him with a certain sense of foreboding – eventually the king’s and then Noct’s time would run out and the minor Astral would do nothing to stop it. Absolutely nothing. And all these Dreamers out and about, they could all just vanish and reappear a few years later as a teenager with no idea what had happened.

The possibilities were near endless, and he tossed and turned wondering when he would remember his past. How many others were there, not aware?

He wheezed.

All this ‘what if’ was pointless. He had a duty, and he would see that duty to its end, alongside whatever duty his past self had loaded himself with. Two fronts to fight at, but Ignis was rather certain he could manage that. All it needed was planning – and planning was something he was good at. He’d see it through to the end.

Come hell or high water.

* * *

“And you were planning on telling us about that when exactly?”

“Never, to be quite frank. Considering that one of the latest… hmm, unfortunate developments in the past, I had figured you would know what it means.”

“That information was still rather crucial, Cor--”

“With all due respect, I do not have to tell you my entire life’s story, Clarus. The Mark of the Dreamer being part of said life, whether you like it or not. It doesn’t help that you have already disturbed Ignis with this news.”

“… You...”

“Frankly, I would have preferred if he had never found out until he remembered peacefully – he nearly completely lost his wits in the past by learning about it before his memory returned. But, we cannot change the past. We can also not make a person as sharp as Ignis simply forget. I sincerely hope you have not dug his grave, though.”

* * *

They stayed in Lestallum for a few days. They had little to no idea what caused Noctis’ headaches, but they wanted to make certain he would not faint in the middle of whatever cave that royal arm was supposedly in behind that waterfall Talcott had mentioned. Thus, Ignis was strolling through the market with a frown on his face.

There were certain foods that could help with pain, but it didn’t look like they were on sale here – making Noctis eat vegetables would have been an entirely different monster, but thankfully there was an easy way to sneak them in. Especially since he had access to the kitchen back at the Leveille; just making a purée out of whatever vegetable and putting it into the sauce should have sufficed. Alas, he found nothing and instead looked at another stall.

Much to his surprise, he found himself standing next to Iris, who looked up at him with a smile.

“Fancy meeting you here, Ignis!”

Most people would assume that girl was as soft and friendly as she looked and acted, but Ignis was quite certain she could lift him from where he stood and chuck him a few metres. She was stronger than most people, which made her hobbies rather endearing. He smiled back at her.

“Hello, Iris.”

Apparently the others had gone on a hunt – Ignis rolled his eyes, they had just left without telling him anything – and Iris had then decided to look for the missing fourth member of the royal entourage. Her only comment was that if anything happened, Gladiolus would be the one who would get his head bashed in since Prompto was too skittish and Noctis used his head every once in a while.

“How about we go get a tea somewhere and wait for these guys to come back?”

“That sounds like a marvellous idea, Iris. Judging by your tone, you’ve got a place you want to go to?”

A sheepish grin and a quick nod, and then she started casually strolling out of the market.

“Y’know, Lestallum’s great.”

It wasn’t home, really, but Ignis hummed in agreement. All of them missed Insomnia, he knew they all did. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been awake for a night when they arrived in Lestallum and Iris gave her side of the story of the fall. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard her and Prompto cry in the next room over later that night, like he hadn’t caught Gladiolus stare out into the night for hours on end and like Noctis hadn’t been tossing and turning and whimpering in his sleep.

He followed her slowly, taking in the sights.

That was when he caught it. Just underneath her hairline, on her neck. Almost too small to make out properly, had he not seen it a million times in a mirror.

A Mark of the Dreamer.

Ignis’ heart nearly stopped right in that moment. He must’ve made some noise because Iris turned around with a concerned expression.

“Hey, are you okay, Ignis?”

He put on a smile and shrugged. “Just have a small headache, ‘s all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Just like Noct, huh...”

“I don’t think so – the warm weather here is all but becoming for me. I assume it just came from the heat.”

She didn’t look entirely convinced. Iris was younger than all of them, but somehow usually knew exactly what was going through their heads – she must’ve known that he was lying, but Ignis continued grinning at her as if he hadn’t just nearly completely lost the ground under his feet from shock. The mysterious other Dreamer in the Citadel that the king and Clarus had talked about…

Had been their own daughter.

* * *

_Ignis once more found himself sitting on his bed with a book on the topic in his hands. He was 19 and still didn’t know better than to not study this since all it left him with was nausea these days. But this book sounded rather interesting, because it was a compilation of works of people who observed Dreamers once they knew who they were and how they acted. It had been written a few centuries in the past but that had never stopped him._

_Most of the things he already knew, but eventually he stopped on a certain chapter._

“Limitations on lives regarding royalty _, huh?” He was just muttering to himself and sat up straighter now. He hadn’t heard that before._

_Dreamers could be royalty, but never royalty that had a direct claim to the throne. They were often the bastards off to the side or the very last born that would never stand a chance of inheriting the throne unless circumstances went wild. If circumstance started happening and the off event of royalty dying like flies came true, they were usually dropped as well. They dropped just like the rest – no one with a true Mark of the Dreamer instead of just Royalty’s Mark ever ascended to a throne or ruled a country. They also never married into royalty and became a ruler that way. It had been observed in the past, especially when closely watching bastard children. But, there were also simply cases of siblings with a claim to the throne, where the first in the line of succession simply succeeded and the second one carried on with their life. Granted, these cases were rarer than just the bastard case, but they happened._

_It had happened to even the Oracles, and most people assumed that the Lucis Caelum twins had been a case of that as well. Since they had been twins, the older would have inherited the throne even had the younger not died horribly young. After that child’s death they had all but realised that it hadn’t been a Mark that royalty carried as Carbuncle’s protection – it had been a Mark of the Dreamer, and whoever they had been they had returned to the cycle with nary a complaint until they vanished from the pages of history entirely._

_The major difference between Lucian and Tenebraen royalty was that Tenebrae had a strict policy on Dreamers – returning them to the cycle. Which, by any means, was just a death sentence. Dreamers that were discovered there were put to death, as the book explained. Even royal children, even Oracles or Oracles in training were not exempt from this status. The book then went on to speculate that back during Oracle Concordia’s training days her personal guard and lover Fa had been a Dreamer and that the broken-hearted Oracle-to-be had put her partner down as the rules demanded. Said rules were apparently divine orders given by the Glacian during the time of the Founder; thus no one but the Oracles and royalty claiming it could verify the truth of that._

_Ignis furrowed his eyebrows and closed the book._

_The prospect of both King Regis, tired as he looked, and Noctis, tired as he usually was, losing their wits over knowing they should have died a few times over was worrying. Very worrying. The King perhaps had it happen to him in the past and had Clarus to help him with that, but Ignis was rather uncertain if he could find the correct words to help Noctis with that. Gladiolus definitely wouldn’t find them, but Ignis himself didn’t know if he could._

_He put the book away and stared at the ceiling. There were so many issues with all of this, all adding up to the fact that he himself had lived at least one time before – he didn’t even have a vague estimate of how many times he had lived before, or if the was one of a group that had chosen a shared goal. There were single Dreamers, and there were team Dreamers. Ignis had no idea which one he was, seeing that his Mark was different from the ones depicted in the books._

_There had been but a small note, apparently from a book that dated back to Solheim as source. Priests of Carbuncle, worshippers of death and rebirth, had often claimed that when the need would arise for them, all Dreamers would be sent out at the behest of Bahamut. There were no recorded instances of that ever happening, but the source had insisted that this could very easily happen._

_Would a Chosen King being born make all Dreamers being out and about necessary? It seemed reasonable._

_It also sounded extremely harsh and cruel, since Dreamers usually had their own goals instead of just doing what the gods wanted them to. Carbuncle was a minor Astral, it had to bend to the will of Bahamut – much like Lucian royalty had to. But average people like Ignis did not have to bow their head to gods if they so pleased. So why would all Dreamers be sent out to support the King of the Light if they could just ignore that order and do as they wanted to?_

_He rolled to his side._

_This was just giving him a headache._

* * *

It wasn’t something too many people cared about, or really commented on. As far as the general populace was concerned King Regis had married Queen Aulea, his childhood friend. Their son, Noctis, was the heir to the throne.

Of course things were never that easy, especially not with royalty. Ignis smiled at Iris and reassured her that he was okay. She eventually bought it when they sat down at the café and he had told her that the tea was entirely on him. She was grinning again by the time the tea came and was excitedly talking about Lestallum and how great it was.

Not many people knew that Iris Amicitia was an exception to a clause that existed in the Lucian chain of command. Normally Lucian kings or queens had one child to avoid unnecessary complications – Noctis just so happened to have a younger sister. Said younger sister was marvelling at the wonders of a power plant in the biggest city in Lucis other than Insomnia with round eyes and a giddy tone, stirring her sweetened tea.

Queen Aulea had been Gladiolus’ mother – Clarus was his, Noctis’ and Iris’ father.

Ignis himself wouldn’t have cared about it too much. But that Mark of the Dreamer just under Iris’ hairline on the back of her neck made him worry. Just three years ago he had read about the Mark of the Dreamer and the Mark of Royalty, the differences that came with it, and the complications down the line. Dreamers never had children unless they were in the last life, the one where they succeeded or gave up entirely. Dreamers never became rulers. Iris was definitely not in the line of succession, since her true heritage was all but a secret to the public, but this revelation was kind of terrifying.

She was just like him, and he had no idea how to address it. He didn’t know if either of her fathers had ever mentioned it to her, he didn’t even know if she knew she had that mark. It was in a rather hidden place, after all. Not as obvious as Ignis’ on his arm – and given that he had spent several years more than terrified knowing that eventually he would remember lives he had lived in the past with no way of telling people without sounding extremely weird… He wished Iris didn’t know. Wouldn’t have to know until her memory awakened again.

He wasn’t even sure if she knew that she could theoretically lay claim to the throne in case something ever happened to Noctis.

“So, when will you guys be leaving for the waterfall cave?”

He shrugged and sipped his tea.

“Tomorrow. Which makes the reason why they went to a hunt for money even more confusing. We are properly stocked up and have enough money left to buy food or emergency supplies should the need for it arise on the road.”

Iris laughed. It was quite a familiar sound, one that reminded him of Insomnia.

“I told Gladdy just this morning that you probably had everything meticulously planned through as usual, but none of these meatheads would listen to me!”

“Well, that’s just how they are. I wouldn’t want them to change, but sometimes I’d appreciate a little more foresight from their sides.”

“Hah, in your dreams, Ignis.” She then stirred her tea some more and started frowning. “And after? Will you be leaving Lestallum?”

Insomnia had fallen and many people even out here were still missing their relatives. Even though most of the city had made it out more or less okay, the fact that Daemons had rampaged inside it and somehow the old Wall had been activated remained. Ignis had thought that King Regis, in a last act of desperation had activated it, but it hadn’t lined up with the order of events that they had been told. They needed to find Lunafreya and ask her about it, since she had been inside the city as far as they all knew. And finding Lunafreya was always linked to a political marriage that Noctis had no objections to but that didn’t seem to be very high on his list – and the fact that Oracles would kill a Dreamer once they knew that they were a Dreamer remained.

“We most likely will be scouting for some more royal arms if possible, and leave Lestallum accordingly. There is a fair chance there are a lot more still useable ones scattered across Lucis that we just have not heard about yet. The hunters and the Marshal are out there, trying to help us find them, but we shouldn’t rely completely on that ourselves. So, I can’t fully answer that. We might be leaving. We might not be leaving.”

Iris finished her tea and took a deep breath. She looked like she wanted to say something, but eventually settled for: “That’s fine by me.”

* * *

“… Good grief.”

“Yeah, yeah, I deserve that one.”

“Noct. What on Eos did you hunt?”

“Stags.”

“It looks like you’ve gotten run over with a Niff train.”

“Yeah, feels that way. Y’should see Gladio and Prompto, but they’re still out collecting our bounty.”

“… Next time just inform me and take me along.”

“Trust me, we will. That was… painful. ‘s not as fun without you, but you looked so busy at the market that we just scrammed. Sorry for that, Specs.”


	15. Prompto - A shot in the dark

“I’ll meet you at the border.”

“Magni, what about--”

“She’ll be fine, Seraphina. It’s not like I’m completely fleeing Niflheim, I just want to help her best friend. I want to help _you_.”

“A-At the border? And I can bring _him_?”

“At the border, a week after the mission, and yes, you can bring him. Although it would be safer if you left him here...”

“And let him get turned into one of these _monsters_ , Magni?”

* * *

He hadn’t been at the border. It had all been a ruse, he had just used her and her fear as an excuse to finally abscond. Still, no matter what, she was going to get him out of here, out of the long reach of the MT project. Even just Tenebrae might keep him safe long enough to turn him useless to the MT production – she’d seen it. She’d been one of the people _working for it_ , so she knew what happened.

Fleeing had never been her intention until she’d seen him. She’d sworn herself to science, to whatever it was that Chancellor Izunia and Verstael did. They all called them creatures, creations, never human. Never human.

She realised too late what madness they had descended into, when they’d essentially ripped her day-old son out of her hands to get the first stage out of the way. A screeching child, and when he returned he was so unusually quiet they had to have tranquillised him somehow. It was that time that she reached out to her old friend despite not being on the best of terms. Who had answered her had been her friend's husband Magni Tummelt instead. The man who had listened to her conscience coming back and her regrets, who made a promise to get her and her son to safety and then do something about this thing happening in Niflheim.

The man who had left her all on her own on the border.

But Seraphina was not going to give up that easily. She’d not been raised an idiot or a fool who went back crying after a misstep. She just had to make sure her boy’s pretty obvious barcode tattoo was covered up properly and she could take a train out of Niflheim, out of Tenebrae if necessary. Perhaps Lucis would truly be the final frontier, the country was vast enough to hide in if she just stayed off the main roads and obvious tourist hotspots. Then again a crowd usually was better to hide in.

Eventually, while she sat on the train looking at her sleeping child, she came to the realisation that the safest place in Lucis was probably Insomnia. A city she had no way of entering – but her son could.

The bouts of nausea started when she set foot on Lucian soil. Having dealt with the process of MT fabrication, she knew what it meant and it filled her with dread. She had to make it to Insomnia before she lost it, she had to get him into safety. It was a mad mantra, but it helped her keep her eyes on the road instead of giving in to the temptation to leave him in the woods and return back to Niflheim. He had to be safe enough, if he could just make it to safety he would grow up one day and once the Lucians realised things he could help them enter Zegnautus Keep and burn the place to the ground. And even if Niflheim burned itself before that, he could still just live. Life, she realised way too late, was more precious than winning a war.

Her strength finally gave out somewhere in Duscae. It was raining and she was absolutely unable to stand again. He was going to die here, and if he didn’t he’d get eaten by the wildlife or a Daemon. It was over, it was all over, and she found herself cursing Magni with what little of her breath remained. It was that very cursing that saved her son’s life in the end.

“ _Hey! Können Sie mich hören? Geht’s Ihnen gut?”*_

She thought she was hallucinating when she woke up from a blackout only to find a man crouching down next to her. He looked relatively young, thoroughly Lucian, and she could barely make out his words. Perhaps he was even speaking some Lucian dialect – she wouldn’t have been able to understand that. After a few more attempts to speak to her he paused. Perhaps he was realising that she didn’t understand Lucian and instead switched to Eosian.

“Can you understand me now? What happened to you?”

She simply sighed. “My… son...”

“The kid’s alright. Here.”

He was holding him in his arms, and Seraphina cracked a tiny smile. Everything was blurry and the sun was setting. Unless there was a nearby haven this man would have to leg it, and quickly, because the lights from the nearest settlement looked rather far away.

“Can you walk?”

“Over… for me...”

He was dressed like a hunter, and even though he had asked that, judging by his frown he knew exactly what was happening to her. Her son was moving slightly – he was asleep. She tried keeping her smile up as she looked at the hunter one more time.

“Take Prompto… somewhere… safe…”

* * *

“So, tell me again… How did you end up carrying that cute a kid around?”

“And as I’ve repeatedly told you, his mother was dying to Scourge and she asked me to take the kid somewhere safe. So I did – when I returned the next morning to bury her, her body had vanished, so I’m guessing the wildlife got her.”

Wiz’ Chocobo Post had just been a temporary stop for the hunters back on their way to Galdin Quay and Insomnia, respectively. He was glaring at his partner who was cooing at the child. They’d tried asking around if someone could help them with him, but all they really could do was help determine an average age – about a year, give or take a month – and tell the hunters how to take care of him.

“What’s your plans for him? You’re barely scraping past 20, you live on your own, you make your money out hunting.”

“Gale, if I knew what to do with him, I wouldn’t look scared _shitless_ , as you so aptly put earlier.”

Gale Argentum, ever the infuriating elder hunter at 36, stopped cooing the child and instead laughed. “You need to calm down, you’ll find weirder things than a child out there once you get some more experience under your belt, Verus. But, seriously, you can’t drag that poor baby around constantly and then just shove him into the next-best person’s arms. Orphanages are perfectly fine, really, but...”

He knew where that was going. It was absolutely no secret to anyone who knew Gale and his wife Felicia, but Verus still narrowed his eyes.

“You know I’d trust you blind. I also know your wife lives in Insomnia, which is probably the safest place on Eos at this moment. But...”

“Oh, don’t go playing the hero here, Verus. Sure, the kid’s mother asked you to do it. Come to Insomnia with me then, and see if Felicia and I are good enough for little… Prompto, was it?”

“Prompto, yes.”

* * *

There weren’t exactly many people who had parents that worked outside of the city. What it meant for him, in the end, was that he rarely saw his father. He sent money after nearly every successful hunt, he learned pretty quickly. Money meant that his father was still alive and out there. His mother worked a lot, sometimes even just stayed at her workplace for days on end – as she’d told him it wasn’t that unusual, they even had bedrooms there.

Those precious few days where they sat together meant the world to them. Hunters were becoming increasingly busy people thanks to the recent Daemon surge, and his mother was also busier than usual, but they both listened to the story of the lost puppy as if he was telling them a riveting tale of victory. He just let out the letter with Lunafreya’s wish, and instead finished it with saying that eventually the dog found its owner.

Eventually, years down the line, he’d spend evenings with Noctis. Mostly at the prince’s apartment, but Prompto really didn’t mind that. It was funnier than the mostly empty house.

About a week before his 18th birthday, it was only his mother at home, holding her head. She didn’t even have to say anything, Prompto immediately understood. Hunters lived dangerously. He instead spent the evening sitting with his mother on the couch, and Felicia Argentum simply told him the story of how she had ended up meeting a hunter of all people. It was a lighthearted story that had begun with a simple run-in on a street while she was getting ready to leave Insomnia for her studies, and ended with him and her sitting at Galdin Quay enjoying food together after he’d managed to drive off a bunch of Sabretooths bothering her almost entirely on his own. It sounded kind of surreal, hearing how they had met each other, but Prompto enjoyed the story quite a lot.

It was like another photo for the pinboard. Another memory for down the road, when he needed them. He would need them down the road, he somehow always had had that feeling. Maybe it had something to do with this tattoo that he hid from everyone. He didn’t know why, but apparently his birth mother had it covered up, and thus did his mother and father continue covering it up. Something about that felt right, and it never really bothered him that much.

He tried smiling as openly as he could when he told his mother he’d be moving out the next time he saw her.

“You… what?” She actually looked up from the dinner she was preparing.

“I’ll be moving out. Y’know I’m friends with the prince, and I wanna… help with keeping him safe. He means a lot to me, mum.”

“I… I see. If that’s what you want, Prompto, of course, anything--”

He raised a hand to interrupt her. “… It’s training with the Crownsguard.”

“… Ah…”

“Yeah. That’s why I’ll have to move out. Can’t get civilians involved and all that.”

“Prompto, darling, you know you’ll always have my utmost support for anything you do. If that’s really, truly what you want, I won’t shackle you to this home – look at you, you’re a grown man, almost 19 and all!” She had walked over and pulled him into an embrace while saying that, and now started ruffling his hair as if he were a child again.

“Mum, please, I’m trying to be a serious adult here!”

* * *

Training all on his own was terrifying enough. Normally Crownsguard trainees were put in a group, but the prince’s Crownsguard all but consisted of two people since most other people were involved with the King somehow. The Kingsglaive did not have to answer the prince at all, and the Crownsguard following the king himself did not have to bother with the prince either. Everyone had to answer to the king, however.

Prompto’s entire body was shaking, and his trainer clicked his tongue.

“C’mon, there’s no need for jelly legs. I’m not going to rip your head off.”

“Y-You certainly look strong enough f-for that.”

He had no idea who that even was – it was a member of the Crownsguard for certain, but he had no idea what rank he was talking to. It wasn’t the Shield of the King nor was it the Marshal, and Prompto only really knew Gladiolus and Ignis through Noctis. This guy, on the other hand was a perfect stranger. And he wasn’t kidding when he said that the guy looked strong. Prompto was lean, but compared to him that sharpshooter looked _ripped_.

“If I ripped off everyone’s heads during training, the king would’ve had mine years ago, kiddo. Don’t worry, you’re a natural, all you really need to do is aim a little better. Which’ll happen near automatically once you stop shaking in my presence.”

He wasn’t lying. Prompto improved even more once he got rid of the shaking.

* * *

At least one thing was certain in this uncertain time – his mother would be safe. They’d lived close enough to the border, his father’s family lived somewhere in Leiden, she most likely fled at the earliest sign of violence during the peace treaty. They hadn’t run into her while they had been in the area, but Prompto was absolutely certain that she was in one piece. The same couldn’t be said of everyone else’s families.

He barely knew anything about them, other than Noctis and Gladiolus had both lost their fathers and looked very grim on their way to the outpost. Ignis managed to maintain his silent facade, but every so often Prompto thought he saw it crack. Just a small twitch of the lips. Gladio at least knew that his sister was in one piece, but given that the king was dead there was effectively no chance that Clarus Amicitia lived. Hell would have frozen over before the Shield of the King would have let anything happen.

It made a cold shiver run down Prompto’s spine. How prepared had Niflheim been? Clearly the entire treaty had been an elaborate ruse from the beginning, but the king had never struck Prompto as foolish enough to believe this. Noctis probably hadn’t believed it himself. But murdering the regent of a country in cold blood and starting a bloodbath in the centre of the city sounded like an eerie echo of what had happened in Tenebrae all these years ago – it was probably what they had gone for from the very beginning. It was perverse, and he stared at the countryside passing the Regalia. The war was all but over now, after years of stalemate. All the empire needed to do was move in like it owned the place, and it would all end. Unless somehow the bleeding country could recover from losing its capital city which was supposedly impenetrable and the king that had ruled it for quite some time.

Noctis was shaking in his seat. Whether he was crying or doing with with barely contained rage, Prompto wasn’t sure. He wasn’t going to intrude on that, either. They all needed some space even if they were chasing Cor Leonis across the country now. Perhaps it was better to chase on slippery man than wallowing in regrets or doing something excessively stupid like trying to face the empire head on. Maybe that was why Cid had all but insisted they go see the Marshal.

They did get to beat up some MTs, though. Noctis and Gladio had been rather eager to bash these things in, and Ignis had followed them – Prompto and the Marshal trailed behind. Mostly to watch for any enemies appearing from behind or pouring in from the sides, but it didn’t look like there was anything of danger once they had taken out the Engine.

“She’s okay,” Cor eventually said, and Prompto looked at him. “You mother’s okay.”

A sigh of relief was all Prompto could muster. It felt so wrong, knowing that his mother lived while everyone else’s living parent or guardians were dead somewhere in the smoking Citadel. He was rather surprised to see the Marshal smile at him.

“I left her with the hunter your father once trained. Don’t know if you know him, but he’s the one who found you all those years ago.”

Up ahead came loud crashing. An explosion. A satisfied yell from Noctis.

“I think I heard that story, yes.”

There was something about the way Cor looked at the other three when they returned. Like he knew something he shouldn’t, like he was even older than he actually was. He had probably not slept at all since news of Insomnia being attacked had surfaced, and even though he kept his cool composure as always he must have been just about as badly shaken as Cid had been, if not even worse.

* * *

Sometimes, in the dark, he felt like something was watching him. They thankfully avoided nightly hunts as much as possible thanks to Ignis insisting that was unnecessary danger they could easily avoid and should avoid, but sometimes when they were at a haven Prompto felt like there were hungry eyes on him. Ever since they had left the Crown City it had been like that, an Prompto subconsciously rubbed his tattooed wrist. He’d never shown anyone this. His parents had always told him not to, since something was strange about it.

It was stranger than the birthmark on his chest that sometimes felt like it was burning, especially when he awoke from one of these dreams that felt like fire was consuming him whole. Just out of reach there was something that was following him around, or so he at least thought. There were plenty of Daemons scuttling about – havens were safe, but he still watched them anxiously.

Eventually it was Ignis who noticed what was up. Noctis was snoring softly while leaning against his rental Chocobo, and Gladiolus too had fallen asleep leaning against his.

“You do look rather nervous, Prompto. Is everything alright?”

They were on another hunt, but night had crept up sooner than they had anticipated. That was why they had settled down at the nearby haven – the target wouldn’t just vanish over night and after a good night’s rest they would most likely be better at this hunting business anyway. Prompto stretched and shook his head.

“’m fine. These things just… creep me out.”

“The Daemons?”

“Yeah. I feel like one’s watching me. At least one.”

He could practically see Ignis furrowing his brows despite not looking at the other man. It was one of his more endearing traits, one he’d come to appreciate during these travels. He usually tried keeping everything and everyone in check like a good future royal advisor would, but he still cared about everyone and listened to them when they needed it. Just as Gladiolus always offered a strong shoulder to lean on when one was too exhausted to carry on. Sure, there were jabs about stamina, but if either of the other three needed it he was there to help them walk back to the car.

“It sounds silly, I know.” Prompto finally leaned back and turned his head to look at Ignis. “But ever since we left the Crown City, and especially since we entered Duscae and Cleigne, I feel like something’s trailing me at night. Creeping around the camp, waiting for me to come out.”

“Perhaps some sort of Daemon has an odd fixation on you. It wouldn’t be… completely unheard of, but it does sound worrying.”

“They can’t enter havens and sanctuaries, though, so… we should be fine?”

Ignis sat down again – he had just finished tidying up the place a little – and looked at Prompto with a frown.

“Still, if it makes you this nervous, perhaps we should take care of it. A Daemon with a fixation can become bothersome, if not violent, after a while.”

The shadows beyond the campfire and the glowing runes etched into the stone ground seemed to shift. Something large was rustling through the surrounding undergrowth, and a thin, hissing wail reached their ears. Ignis sat up straight and looked for the source of the sound, while Prompto buried his face in his hands. Noctis remained undisturbed, but Gladiolus shifted in his sleep with a grunt.

“Was that it? Is that what you think is following you around?”

“I-I-I dunno!”

The thin wailing and the rustling died down after a few minutes, but Prompto was shaking by that time. It was the first time he’d actually heard that thing – normally it stayed away and didn’t make a noise. When he removed his hands from his face, Ignis was standing straight and looking around. He was most likely trying to catch a glimpse of what it was that followed Prompto around.

A few moments later he walked over and sat down next to him.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“’cause it’s never close by. Not this close. It doesn’t do anything, it’s just… watching. This was the first time I heard it… m-move.”

Ignis put a hand on his shoulder. “And that’s why you never said anything. I understand, I think, but please. You’re one of us, and if something like that bothers you, tell us. I’m quite certain the snoring duo would more than love to help you hunt this thing down to help you sleep at night.”

He cracked a smile. They would – and Ignis would, too.

“As long as it’s not snakes, I think I’m good, Iggy. Thanks. No, really, thank you.”

* * *

“ _Why did it have to be snakes!?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * "Hey! Are you alright? Can you hear me?"
> 
> Notes:  
> 1) Being bilingual has its pros, I think. That's why I wrote what Seraphina didn't understand in German. As for why she didn't understand it; Eos has one general language named Eosian in here, but every country has its own variations of it. Lucian itself is divided into several sub-dialects that often sound nothing like general Lucian. Verus himself is probably speaking a Duscaen sub-dialect, which I didn't really put in.  
> 2) Speaking of Verus - the other Dreamers are all but out there, which is why I put him there. A reminder, and such.  
> 3) Yeah, I'm going the route of 'Naga might or might not be Prompto's mother'; specifically Seraphina in this case. She just doesn't hang out in the cave the entire time. She's going to go back there soon, though.  
> 4) This chapter is set before they reach Lestallum but after they take care of Deadeye. Hence the Chocobos.


	16. Ashes to Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im on a roll, i think it was just cor's slightly shattered plotline that kept me hostage?
> 
> also, to clarify since it apparently caused a bit of confusion: Clarus/Regis/Aulea is basically a thing that happened; Aulea is Gladio's mother; Noctis and Iris are Regis'; Clarus is the father for all three of them. Regis officially married Aulea, Clarus was officially ~married to someone else~ so the citizens don't get all bothered by this mess.

“ _Keep your eyes closed, son of Lucis.”_

“No! No! Are you-- you’ve… Bahamut has got to be kidding me!”

“ _So you know who we are. Very well. But please, keep your eyes closed, we beg you.”_

“I’m doing as they told me to do!”

“ _And his rage is justified, as would have been your death. But your time, Izunia, is not yet up. He would have killed you, just as he killed plenty of people just with his Armiger. Keep your eyes closed.”_

“Carbu--”

“ _Know you the full weight of your actions, god-given or not. What you did was betraying him and his trust, right after the both of you lost your father. The fact that he willingly took in the darkness he purged remains, but your actions do not make you the better one. But do as a true usurper does – take your father’s ring. Become the king your brother was destined to be. Open your eyes, Founder.”_

* * *

_People who told the truth were locked up or just executed. He was the first wife’s son, Ardyn was the second wife’s. He almost heard the chattering laugh of his mother followed by berating growling. ‘Why did you shed your true name? They should know!’ No. They couldn’t know. Caelum had been named the successor – not Quasso. Quasso was executed for crimes related to following a cult of the Infernian – not Caelum._

_It was a simple position switch. Simple, very very simple. Too simple._

_The ring was heavy. Too heavy, almost. It made sense why his father had gotten so utterly weak in the last years, especially with the constant worry about the wayward healer. He’d spent more sleepless nights over what would happen in case Ardyn returned too late than worrying about the gods or the fact that his only goal – given to him by his mother – was now completely out of reach._

“ _Father.”_

_He hadn’t expected Emil to come back on time. He hadn’t expected to live until Emil was back. The ring became even heavier, but he forced a smile out of him. Sitting on the throne Ardyn was supposed to sit on, most likely talking to his own child or children that he could have had. With these retainers by his side, ever infuriatingly vigilant._

“ _You’ve returned.”_

“ _Yes.”_

_Behind Emil stood a man he didn’t know. Io was missing, but guessing by how sombre the prince looked, the man had not made it back the Crown City alive. He nodded at the stranger – he looked at least part Accordan – and the stranger bowed. No word. So he at least knew his place._

_Emil bowed as well and excused himself. He’d have expected him to tell him a story, but Izunia knew that Emil wouldn’t try to chatter ever again. Io was the only person he chattered to excitedly, with that spark in his eyes that told of a lively and clever young man that had barely escaped childhood._

_Izunia on the throne, the ring on his hand, the guilt slowly eating him up._

_After a week of this madness and hopeless attempts to contact the gods to ask them if this was really what they wanted, he set out. Told Emil to take care of things until he returned, leaving the boy behind confused. He essentially stormed out of the Citadel, out of the city, and set his eyes on the horizon. There were some he could ask._

_Half a month later, he stood in front of Titan. The heat in this place was unbearable, and he was not quite sure if the Archaean would answer him without an Oracle, but Izunia needed answers._

“ _Archaean!”_

_At first, there was no reaction. For twenty minutes he continued calling out to the god sporadically, but got more and more frustrated. The ring was as heavy as ever, but despite the intense heat it was cold against his skin. Like an icy arrow lodged into his hand._

“ _Please, answer me! Please...”_

_Nothing changed, not even the air. He had come all this way just to be ignored by the gods that had told him to kill his own brother, and the weight of it all was going to drive him insane. Every time he had nearly died since had just been Carbuncle, sitting there in the dark and watching him, judging him. A minor Astral was but the tool of the Astral they answered, and he thought he felt Bahamut’s piercing glare through the soft but narrowed eyes._

_He closed his eyes. There was one thing he hadn’t tried yet – he had announced himself as king Izunia Lucis Caelum several times, but the Archaean refused to budge. Thus, as he sat there on his knees with the ring so heavy that it might break the rock below him, he curled his hands into fists._

“ _I am… Izunia Lucis Quasso, the one you and yours told to get rid of the true heir Ardyn Lucis Caelum for he had become a tainted creature.”_

_And finally a reaction._

_The voice was as booming as ever, and he covered his ears a little. That droning, deafening sound made the ground shake and the neatly built royal tomb on the other cliff crumble slightly. If he weren’t already on his knees, he was rather certain that he would have sunken to them now._

“ _Yes, I am the spineless fool you crowned king without the full support of the crystal. The man who slaughtered his kin without second thought and then bemoaned naught but the loss of a cure. That very same one. And if you do not believe that, Archaean, the ring on my hand alone should tell you enough.”_

_Again the rumble, the grumble. Izunia covered his ears and closed his eyes._

“ _Please, I need only know… is this truly as it should have gone? Is that truly what fate foresaw for me and mine, for my brother?”_

_He left laughing near hysterically, the mark on the back of his hand burning as Carbuncle once more released him back to the mortal realm. He was staggering, blindly stumbling back to where he came from. All he had was that he was indeed nothing more than a murderer, one that should have died many times over – should have died just now – and that the future rested in the hands of those that would be known as the Lucii._

_Kings and queens of times long gone, kings and queens of times yet to come, all lining up and granting their power to the ring so that one chosen by the gods could strike down the monster his brother’s corpse would have turned into by now._

_Izunia sincerely hoped he imagined that figure on a cliff not too far from him, with that familiar clothing flapping in the wind._

* * *

Some people couldn’t handle it. Izunia certainly had gone mad in the last years of his life, as had his son after him. Several others had followed, and Ardyn had watched it rather amusedly. Mors, too, nearly went mad from knowing that he should have died several times throughout the war, just from holding up the Wall until his heir was strong and mature enough to take over and be dealt a losing hand in a war of attrition.

The sun was rising. The Daemons that Niflheim had specifically brewed up for the war with his help had vanished as Daemons did in the sun – those that had not been taken out by the Old Wall, at the very least. Broken glass and blood splattered on the ground glittered in the almost too bright light. The Oracle had gotten away. She would do as they needed her to do regardless of whether she was in their hands or not. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret was most likely on her way to forge covenants, and her fiancé Noctis Lucis Caelum was sure to follow in her wake once the brat got wind of what she was doing.

The air smelled of charred flesh.

Ardyn didn’t even have to pretend to be surprised when he saw Titus Drautos – the High Commander people only called General Glauca in Niflheim – on the ground. What surprised him was the lingering residue of what could only be the magic contained within the Ring of the Lucii. When he looked at the dying Kingsglaive member Nyx Ulric, all he could do was muster a grin.

“The price of freedom – for whom? A city in ruins? The Oracle on the run? The prince who has no idea what happened?”

A dry laugh, barely more than a huff at this point. He definitely sounded like he war burning up on the inside. “… You wouldn’t under… stand.”

“Do try to _enlighten_ me, Glaive.” He was fully aware that Drautos was playing dead, but the Kingsglaive man barely breathing on the ground was of more interest to Ardyn right now. He had managed to gain the approval of the Lucii, even if they asked for their tribute in the light of the rising sun. That was definitely no small feat and rather impressive.

“The future, Accursed.”

The magical residue scattered as the man breathed his last, the ghost of a crooked grin stuck on his face. Ardyn could almost see it burst and the glimmering particles that now floated amongst the ash and soot made this entire scene of a grand battle look rather hilarious. None would remember Nyx Ulric and what he had done for the city, for all of Eos. For a night he had been a king despite not being of royal blood, but it would have surprised Ardyn if anyone ever told the people that would have cared about this. No grand statues, no burial for a hero. Just the cold death of someone dying for something as flimsy as _the future._ If his feat of impressing the Lucii had not been that ground-breaking, Ardyn would have snorted.

Instead, the turned around. The Citadel was far away, and he would have preferred getting there before any other Niflheim troops.

On the ground, General Glauca wheezed and moved a little as the Chancellor passed him by.

Ardyn didn’t even look at him. Traitors deserved to roll in the dirt like that, even if said traitors had worked perfectly into his plans. If the man lived, it wasn’t his problem – it was Lucis’. There was of course a fair chance that the man would go after the prince out on the road, but with enough luck even that prince would realise that something didn’t add up once the casualties started rolling out. The entire Kingsglaive save for two men, the King and the entire council. It was but a pity that the Crownsguard had been stationed on the outside perimeters of the city, or entirely outside to begin with. Their positioning ensured that they could have fled timely with civilians, before Niflheim had control over the gates – but it had also ensured that they were too far away from the Citadel to help and likely knew that.

Even though he had been dealt a losing hand, King Regis had still managed to get enough people out of the Crown City that they could regroup and help the prince if necessary. It was but a pity that this king had not been the one to fight him – it would have been a marvellous fight indeed.

Ardyn clicked his tongue when he reached the Citadel at noon. It still looked as glorious as before, and surprisingly enough the damage to it wasn’t as severe as he had guessed it would be. The centre of the city, the heart of Insomnia, was still beating feebly even if every single person inside was dead and the crystal had been taken from it. Despite the rubble and the bloodbath surrounding the place, it remained almost pristine.

Even the inside of the building still seemed to glitter despite the ash, the smell of blood, and the eerie silence that held it in its grip. He stepped over the bodies that lay in the way with no small amount of distaste. This building had always been planned to be the centre of the battlefield, but it still seemed like a bad joke. All these lives in Insomnia wasted for Aldercapt’s petty little theft. As if the prince wouldn’t come rushing into Niflheim once he had the chance, especially now that he and the Oracle were pronounced dead. First he’d go find the Oracle, would most likely catch up to her in Altissia, and then he would come storming into Niflheim, swords and guns blazing.

He cracked a grin as he entered the room he had been meaning to enter. The prince would find nothing once he got to Niflheim – no enemies, no people. Only Daemons. Daemons and the crystal, if all went according to plan. And thus far it had all happened just as he predicted and laid out, with the sole exception of that Glaive somehow managing to appease the crusty old council that were the Lucii.

“My, my. The oh so strong leaders of Lucis, reduced to nothing but lifeless corpses.”

He noted the torn off fingers on the ground. Followed by Nox Fleuret just regaining consciousness. Not a single person had made the effort to get him back before sunset, but thankfully this room was as undisturbed as it could be. The only thing he lacked was an arm.

Ardyn nearly started laughing. For all the tough talk and vague threats he had received over the years, the Lucii hadn’t managed to kill one of royal blood after all. Even if they severely limited his usefulness. This wasn’t exactly a good beginning if they truly wished to rid the world of the Accursed, but at least it meant Ardyn hadn’t lost a particularly useful pawn. He walked up to Ravus and turned around to look at the body pinned to the wall by its own sword. What a way to go for so great a warrior, and he almost felt a pang of sympathy for the man.

“Get up, Fleuret. We have some cleaning up to do.”

A low groan.

A breeze went in through the massive hole in the wall. Clarus Amicitia’s cape fluttered in the wind like a flag. A lone flag, attached to the flag-carrier, pinned to the wall of the Citadel. Drenched in blood.

* * *

Just as he had felt the moment the gods had chosen Noctis to be the one all these years ago, he felt a familiar sting go through his body when the prince – the king – picked up a royal arm.

It was raining, but Ardyn had no time to marvel at the beauty of rainy days in Lucis. He was on a mission, albeit a self-given one. The winds howled through the canyon.

Surprisingly enough, they hadn’t even challenged him. Not a whisper went through the canyon, but he could feel the anticipation. The tension was thick, and he could see them wafting about near the bodies they discarded and reclaimed whenever a challenger went through here. It looked as if someone had been here a few years ago, and Ardyn knew that the one they called ‘the Immortal’ had most likely something to do with that. The spies reported a lot, but something as minor as someone succeeding or plain surviving the trials of Gilgamesh was not something they included in the reports.

He found himself in front of the final trial chamber – but no way to open it. The sword that once locked it was gone, but the seal was firmly in place. Which meant that someone had truly survived these ordeals. And if the reincarnation of Cor had been the one… Ardyn raised an eyebrow.

“Tell your master I require an audience.”

The spirits that had wafted about motionlessly suddenly sprung to action. They flitted about and low whispering filled the canyon alongside the howling winds. The entire place was full to the brim with magic fuelled by the crystal, and the magician’s personal traces were all but floating about. If Izunia hadn’t been dead for two thousand years, this would have driven Ardyn mad with hatred for his long dead brother. But he was already full to the brim with that, and the fact that the other was long dead while he was still around was both incredibly tiring and invigorating at the same time.

The crystalline wall in front of him vanished. He stepped through but it did not reappear, much like the other magical walls before him. Perhaps it was because he was no challenger.

Once again the voices had fallen silent, but he felt a hundred eyes on him as he approached the Blademaster.

Gilgamesh bowed once Ardyn stood before him. “Your Highness.”

“So _this_ is how he repaid you for your loyal, self-sacrificing services? Made you testing objects for a cure that failed, that turned you into undying monsters and banished you to this canyon? Marvellous. He would have made a _much_ better Accursed than I would have, but alas.”

No answer. The Blademaster remained as still and stoic as he had been in life – a trait Ardyn could appreciate after spending years with the nutcases in Niflheim. No speaking to royalty after a greeting unless asked a question; an old rule but one that the creature still followed despite having long lost his humanity. Much like Ardyn himself.

He raised an eyebrow. “Has the undefeatable Gilgamesh been defeated?”

“No. I have merely lost that arm to a challenger some odd 30 years ago; it was enough to deem him worthy of living despite the fact that he lost.”

The blade Gilgamesh carried was a recent Lucian design. Not many people used it, but those who did could be counted on one hand. Surprisingly enough Cor was not one of the people who actually used this weapon – either this was his and he had never issued getting a replacement, or it had not been Cor who had rushed through here at all. Ardyn shrugged.

He wasn’t here for gossip about his former retainers.

“’Tis unexpected, but rather helpful.” He cracked a lopsided grin at Gilgamesh. “It means I don’t have to take the arm off by myself.”

Magitek was living tissue fused together with Daemonic tissue, held together by machinery. It was a refined process, one that had taken Niflheim a long time to perfect – and they had even needed a last nudge by Ardyn himself. It had gotten him the position of Chancellor, one that he could have done without, but it certainly worked in his favours.

The former people here had been all but turned into Daemons, the process halted by Izunia desperately trying to cure the bout of Scourge that had spread throughout the palace once Ardyn was out of the picture. Ardyn himself had come here with a clear goal, and whoever had gone through here before him was more a blessing than a curse. That already severed arm was what he had come here for.

The spirits that ever haunted this place had gasped, and a wave of shock went through the canyon in the rain. It sounded like the wind that howled through it, but the Blademaster himself barely reacted.

Them, after a minute of solid silence, he bowed again.

“A fight, then, Your Highness. What you ask for may no longer be part of my body, but I am quite afraid I cannot part with it that easily. As perverse as it sounds – the winner gets the severed arm.”

The Accursed’s grin widened. That was exactly what he had been hoping for; ever since he had let the prince go at Galdin Quay and marched through the smouldering Crown City he had itched for a fight, and there was no better way to fight than fighting something that also couldn’t die permanently. He assumed.

While it was true that he needed the arm to test something on Ravus Nox Fleuret, this was all working out entirely in his favour.

“The winner is who disarms their opponent. Though, to make it fair on you, dear Blademaster – if you manage to skewer me on that pretty little weapon of yours, you win. Fair enough?”

“So be it.”

* * *

The days were slowly but steadily getting shorter. If people hadn’t noticed before, they would by now for certain. It filled Ardyn with nothing but an indescribable sense of glee, up to the point most people in Gralea were calling him even more obnoxious than usual.

Granted, that was when they weren’t worried about the mass disappearance of people from entire sectors of the city. There was a simple enough explanation for it, but for all the wisdom they had acquired in the last years these fools saw not the obvious solution. The Scourge ran rampant here, but all Aldercapt did was lock the crystal and himself away and produce more and more Magitek Troopers. The man was shovelling his entire empire a grave for its untimely demise, and it made Ardyn all the more happy about it. It was working out so well, so very very well. He almost thanked the gods for playing along with him for once, but he realised rather quickly that that would have been the most hypocritical thing he had ever done in his life.

He made a point about it by going to the crystal – even if Aldercapt had locked it away, Ardyn had a key to it without the emperor knowing. The people keeping track of the security cameras were easily swayed by money, and Aldercapt certainly never checked the footage either.

He wore a grin not unlike the one he had when he had challenged Gilgamesh about a month ago, but he was not amused the slightest. In fact this thing’s light was making him nauseous, which in turn made the voices in his head screech in pain.

_Go away! Go away, it hurts!_

Despite the sting that went through his body he put a hand on the crystal and clicked his tongue.

“Long time no see, crusty old dragon. I shan’t impose upon your time much longer, but I do have to _thank you_ for how wonderfully this is all working out thus far.”

_Coward! No killing yourself! Go away! Get away!_

He sighed and withdrew his hand. They were correct – this could kill him if he stayed for much longer or if he truly angered Bahamut. The crystal shone as undisturbed as before, but Ardyn felt the disgust seeping from it. Touched by an unclean creature that Bahamut had once heralded as champion, and Ardyn himself couldn’t even bring himself to keep up the grin again. He wore a completely unimpressed expression as he turned around and walked down the aisle, away from the crystal they had snagged from Lucis before spilling way too much Lucian blood over it.

He stopped halfway down the corridor and once more turned to look at it.

“Your little champion’s time is running out. Do try to tell him to hurry up before I slaughter everyone in this place just for him to find a mountain of corpses and rivers of blood, just as he would have if he had returned or even been in his city.”

Nothing, not even a change in energy. Perhaps that meant he had stunned the Draconian into disgusted silence. Which was entirely fine by Ardyn.

It wasn’t like most people in Gralea were set for survival anyway. There was a giant clock nearing midnight, and once it struck that time it was all over for the city. For its inhabitants.

For its emperor sitting on a throne made of bones.

* * *

“Dearest Aranea.”

“What do you want-- wait, is that Prince Noctis?”

“Yes, but for the time being he will be your charge.”

“Piss off. You know exactly I don’t have to listen to your bullshit, _Chancellor Izunia_.”

“Now listen closely, dragoon. You and I both very well know what this is all leading up to, and no matter how much you try to get in my way, you won’t succeed. So either you play along, or this man spouting bullshit will simply trap you down there with this prince and your companions from another life. The times of me yanking Fa out of danger are long gone, and I can make your life living hell even without having influence over the military. Are we clear?”

“… Yes, we are.”

“ _Marvellous._ ”


	17. Cor - The Marshal, the Hunter, the Glaive and the General

It had been coincidence after coincidence lining up neatly one after another in the last few weeks. Cor had all but accidentally managed to run into another hunter while searching for royal tombs around Lucis – running into hunters was not exactly rare, truth be told. What was rare was the fact that they knew each other without ever officially having met. It was an immediate spark of recognition, and the other hunter bowed to Cor with an honest smile on his face.

“Fancy running into you again, Gaius.”

Cor found himself staring; it was as if not a single day had passed since that time, despite both of them clearly dying to Ramuh’s divine judgement.

“But I suppose that’s not your name this time around. Mind sharing it with me?”

“… Cor Leonis.”

“Nice to officially meet you then, Cor.”

“And what would your name be, then?”

The same almost infuriating laugh as back then. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve been at it for a while, I suppose, but I’ve been at it for much longer. Might as well call me Verus, even if that’s not my birth name.”

It wasn’t an uncommon name across Eos, but Cor still was rather baffled. Mostly because this was barely a change from the man who had gone after the train Daemon with Gaius about a hundred and fifty years ago. What really baffled Cor was that he had not recognised the man after the fall of Insomnia. Perhaps it had been the daze, the crying people, Prompto’s shell-shocked adoptive mother – but he hadn’t recognised the man when he had told the hunter to take her to her in-laws. Apparently his staring was finally getting to the man.

“Look, I was as surprised to see you after the fall as you are now, but please, stop staring at me like that.”

Eventually they settled on sitting down at a haven in the afternoon – they had both accepted the same hunting job but were also scouting the area, as most hunters in Lucis did at the moment. Noctis was out there somewhere with the other three, most likely looking into rumours about a sword behind a waterfall. Cor had considered tracking the empire instead of rumours before, but it all proved to be fruitless. He never found the one person he was looking for, the missing member of their Dreamer quartet. Aranea as the oldest surely would remember things, unlike Ignis and Prompto.

The hunter stretched.

“So, what was your birth name?”

“Rude, I changed it legally after--”

Cor shook his head. “The name you bore when you were mortal.”

“Ah.”

The other Dreamer reached to untie the scarf he wore once again to hide his mark. Cor on the other hand had been covering his with his hand, despite the fact that it was under the shirt. The hunter tapped the Mark of the Dreamer on his neck. It looked slightly scorched from this distance.

“Verus of the Farseeing Eye.”

Cor furrowed his brows. “That’s… a Sol title.”

“Just as Cor Vigilis was the name of a noble, as opposed to bloody commoner Cor Leonis.”

Silence. They were glaring at each other, wary now, with Verus scratching his mark. That Mark of the Dreamer definitely looked different than Cor’s, but he wasn’t sure if it was a scorched Mark or just a weird deviation. But the Marshal was not going to let a simple provocation like that get to him, so eventually he sighed.

“So, that title.”

“Look, Verus of the Farseeing Eye has been dead for godsdamned millennia. Dreamers that go on for too long eventually fail to retain all information, and the oldest gets shifted out. Yours might just be on the verge of starting to fail you. But, yes, that title. It was one given to people who were in service to a long vanished temple of Carbuncle. Ironically enough, all people there were Dreamers, but most of them vanished by the time the purge happened. One dumb fool certainly didn’t fall into a depressive gloomy fit when his Carbuncle vanished like the rest of them.”

“The… purge?”

“What wiped out the minor Astrals was the Scourge. Before that there’d been contained cases – after the outbreak the world shifted. History’s wrong in one point, it was a godsdamned epidemic that relentlessly wiped out what wasn’t strong enough. And those who lived grabbed torch and pitchfork, guns and ammunition, and turned on each other like animals. Pretty sure history lessons should have taught you enough of that. I was strung up by my legs and they demanded answers out of me as to where their minor Astrals had gone. When I couldn’t give them answers, they skewered me on several lances. End of the story. Well, that _would have been_ the end of the story, if back then the remaining Carbuncles weren’t a little panicked. So, just the slightest desire to live, the slightest urge to do something, and you were made a Dreamer.”

Cor nodded.

“And your goal?”

“Seeing the Scourge end.”

“… Beg pardon?”

Again, a laugh. “Seeing it end doesn’t mean ending it myself. I could have never been something like a Chosen One, I would have never wanted to be one. But I’m not getting any rest until I know that something like that will never happen again.”

The sun was setting earlier again. Cor had noticed it recently and he looked at his phone for a second. Another three minutes of daytime lost to a longer night, another three more minutes of Daemons. Eventually there would be no light left over to keep these creatures at bay, and hunters were a finite source. Especially since they usually contracted the Scourge the easiest, given that they were mostly taking down Daemons these days. The rookies in training were usually left to the daytime hunts. Veterans like Cor and his unexpected partner were left to the ones at night. And usually they issued the same mission several times to multiple people just to ensure even the loneliest lone wolf out there would have backup. Cor had often found himself in a group rather than a solo hunt as he had expected.

Two seemed just perfect.

He nodded. “I think I understand.”

Verus, on the other hand, crossed his legs. The runes of the haven were glowing, but it would take a while before their target would most likely show its tentacled face. At the very least the haven would keep the Daemons away until their target appeared – and it was one Daemon that excessively slunk around the haven anyway.

“Now, what about you? What’s your purpose? Because back when we met as Gaius and Verus, I certainly had no clue you were one of us until the train.”

Cor crossed his legs as well and stared at one of the runes. The glow was calming.

“Can goals shift?”

“Eh?”

“Can they change over time?”

“They can. It’s rare enough, but… I guess if the Dreamer or the entire team comes to some agreement, then the goal can shift.”

“I suppose that makes my purpose seeing the Accursed’s madness end. Much like you’re out here to see the Scourge end; just replace the Scourge with the Accursed.”

They fell silent again for about half an hour, until at last the telltale sound of a Mindbreaker-type Daemon appearing sounded across the clearing. They both rose and grabbed their weapons, with Cor mumbling something to himself.

“Oh, and by the way,” Verus said as he made certain his gun was loaded, “Volos. Though, I guess after a legal name change you’ll have to call me Verus, so that knowledge does nothing.”

All Cor Leonis did was roll his eyes.

* * *

There had been odder instances in his life. Up to and not only including half walking in on several people; perhaps the time he slipped down a flight of stairs and ended up on top of King Mors when he had just been 12. While this was not embarrassing the slightest, Cor felt like he was staring a ghost in the face.

The Kingsglaive and the Crownsguard had never particularly been on good terms. Most of it had been blatant prejudice from both sides mixed with a stubborn refusal to work together. The Kingsglaive was a special unit that had not existed throughout the centuries like the Crownsguard had, and they were much better trained in the art of warfare that the Crownsguard who mostly took care of national security instead of fighting wars. The fact that the Crownsguard had escaped the fall of Insomnia overwhelmingly alive still nagged him, but he was starting to understand once the lists of casualties started coming out.

Most of the Kingsglaive was dead. There were several people missing, one otherwise unidentified charred corpse had been found with a decal that designated them as member of the Kingsglaive.

Three of them had been reported missing, although there had been more than enough traces of blood to assume that Nyx Ulric had eventually bled out and died somewhere under the rubble. They hadn’t found the body in the last months, though, which was enough base for him to be simply noted as missing.

The other missing members were Titus Drautos and Libertus Ostium. The latter of whom was currently standing opposite Cor and his fellow hunter with wide eyes.

“M… Marshal.”

“Glaive.”

It had been months, but it was rather plain to see that his injury had still not healed completely. He would limp for the rest of life, that much was clear, and Cor raised his hand to stop his once more unexpected hunting partner Verus from raising his weapon.

“Hold it. I had assumed you dead, Glaive, like the rest of your order.”

The reports weren’t adding up. Even without Regis’ magic the Kingsglaive was more than capable of dodging Daemons and Niflheim, so at least a few of them should have made it out alive at the very least. But the entire order had been all but wiped out, for the lack of a better word. The exception of that was standing there and trembling slightly, as if he was feeling guilty for something.

News from the inside had never reached the outside. People that had been inside Insomnia were under a strict gag rule as per the Niff decree that kept them shut inside, and the rest of Lucis shut outside. The checkpoints had all but been built to catch members of the Crownsguard, or perhaps the runaway prince – there was no way in and no way out, safe for the Crestholm Channels which were completely infested by Daemons and filled with corpses. Sometimes the empire allowed a group of hunters alongside a band of mercenaries or Niff soldiers inside to gather the dead, but Cor had never taken part in one of these missions. It was a tad too macabre for him, and he slightly feared that he might find someone he knew there. At the very least these missions helped clearing scores of missing people by confirming their death.

“...”

Of course that member of the Kingsglaive was not going to say much, if anything at all. He had most likely realised that any member of the Crownsguard was bad news from here on out, but running into the Marshal… was effectively the worst-case scenario.

Even though Cor had been sent to investigate a strange amount of murders in the region and he had finally found something suspicious, he sincerely doubted that Libertus Ostium could have killed all these people. While the Crownsguard and the Kingsglaive never operated together much, he’d heard enough about the man to know that he wouldn’t kill hunters and civilians deliberately. Unless… he had something to hide, something that could cause more issues than it was worth. Cor crossed his arms.

“I’m not going to squeeze answers out of you; Niflheim won the war and Insomnia has fallen. Whatever happened inside the city happened – but there is one thing I wish to know. My partner and I here were sent to investigate a recent surge of deaths in the area. If you’ve got anything that might help our investigation, please share that information with us. Otherwise, you are free to leave.”

Over the years and lives he had learned to easily recognise when he stunned someone into amazed silence. Libertus himself was positively stunned right now, and Verus behind Cor was also rather stunned. Cor, on the other hand really only wanted information and no hassle.

When the Glaive finally spoke, all he managed was a tiny “That’s it?”

That wasn’t exactly confidence-inspiring. The Marshal shifted his weight a little – he was wasting precious daytime by standing there looking at this Glaive.

“That’s it. Nothing attached, no Crownsguard going after you. Reports have you and two fellow members of the Kingsglaive reported as missing, but it is good t know that--”

“Wait. Wait, please, Marshal. Me and who else were reported missing?”

“Is that important?”

“… It might be related to your mystery murders.”

This was going to be more trouble than it was worth, and apparently the hunter agreed judging by the sigh that escaped the other man. Cor tried to remain collected.

“Nyx Ulric and Titus Drautos.”

The Glaive went pale. “Yeah, that… that makes sense.”

“Care to explain?”

“Hasn’t news come out of the city?”

Cor raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. Niflheim has blocked all ways in and all ways out, and other than lists of casualties and missing people within the city we have nothing. Nothing at all. Insomnia might as well be a city of hostages.”

Libertus exhaled a shaky sigh. “Boy, this… you’re not gonna like this, Marshal. But, Drautos…”

There were a million things that Cor would have expected out of him. That Drautos was dead, had gone missing under the rubble, had managed to escape much like Libertus there. Perhaps something about being on the run with Ulric.

“Titus Drautos was Niflheim’s High Commander, generally referred to as General Glauca… which makes him the man who murdered King Regis Lucis Caelum and the more resilient members of the Lucian council, up to and including the King’s Shield Clarus Amicitia. Last time I saw him he was… fighting Nyx… to the death in the burning districts of Insomnia. Nyx had entrusted the Oracle and Tenebraen princess Lunafreya Nox Fleuret to me and asked me to bring her outside the city and accompany her to Prince Noctis’ side.”

* * *

“ _With all due respect, Clarus, is it really wise to station all of the Crownsguard at the city limits?”_

“ _You’ll understand later. But it is a strategic move – and one that Regis depends on. Which means, no complaining.”_

“ _...”_

“ _You still look unimpressed. Is something the matter, Cor?”_

“ _I would rather trust the Infernian than Niflheim with talks of peace. They have, more often than not, shown that they are entirely unworthy of trust – especially in the more recent past. Sending the Crownsguard to the very city limits and trusting common guards and Wall watches with the protection of the Citadel--”_

“ _You’ve truly come far from a teenager bashing his way through the Trials of Gilgamesh with naught but incredible guts, outstanding stupidity, and more luck than any other human being before him to see faults in these defensive measures.”_

“ _I didn’t become Marshal of the Crownsguard by skipping or sleeping in class.”_

“ _No, I suppose not. But, and you can trust me on this, it is all according to plan. Now then, don’t you have a position you should be assuming?”_

“ _...”_

“ _At the end of the day, I’ll explain. I promise, I’ll explain, Cor, but please. Go.”_

* * *

It was rather hilarious that most of Cor’s more recent run-ins with people always ended at a haven, with a campfire crackling between him and them, and nothing but the stars above and the Daemons around. Every time he ended up together with the fellow hunter and Dreamer Verus he actually broke into sarcastic laughter every once in a while. Living wasn’t supposed to feel like the in-between, waiting for his companions to be shipped out into a world losing a war against darkness. Yet here he was, once more, stretching next to a campfire.

“Allow me to recap – the head of the Kingsglaive and most of the Kingsglaive were plotting a coup, which all but succeeded because nobody saw through Drautos being Glauca. He then proceeded to murder the King and most of the council, and set out to either capture or butcher Oracle Lunafreya for the Ring of the Lucii which she had been entrusted with by King Regis prior to his death. Glauca – Drautos – then failed to truly catch her because she proved too slippery and her appointed protector Nyx Ulric put up a fight. Enough of a fight to _impress the Lucii_ and _gaining their favour_ , which then led him to activate the Old Wall. The last thing you know was said Old Wall clashing with the Daemons Niflheim unleashed in Insomnia, and with Glauca fighting Nyx Ulric to the death. After you managed to slip out of the city, the Oracle and you parted ways at her insistence. You returned to the city once more to try finding your friend, found nothing, and left the city before they completely barred the place down.”

Crackle.

The Glaive nodded while the hunter stretched. Somewhere in the distance a group of goblins was making strange hooting sounds as they most likely clawed open some local wildlife that had not managed to find a proper resting place the Daemons could not reach before the sun had set.

It had been months since the fall of Insomnia, months since the reports of the casualties had come in. Months since Cor had learned that effectively everyone he had worked with that was not part of the Crownsguard had been all but slaughtered in what used to be the safest place in Lucis. There had been reports but no bodies to bury, no closure, no names of their murderers.

Except now he had one.

Titus Drautos.

He remembered the morning the prince had left the city, but a few days before the singing of the peace treaty. The way the king had limped down the stairs to talk to his son for one last time. The way Drautos had stood on top of the stairs. The way the prince had all but jokingly said that the king was in Drautos’ hands.

Cor squeezed his rather lacklustre sandwich. He’d lost his appetite a long time ago but he considered it impolite to decline food specifically prepared for him.

“You assume that Drautos survived and is the person out here killing everyone he comes across so people don’t recognise him, Ostium?”

“Yes. The injuries on the victims around here have just been… they sound like they were inflicted with a great sword.”

The hunter clicked his tongue. The Glaive’s nervous eyes darted from the campfire to a Daemon that slunk around in the bushes outside the haven. The Marshal frowned and set his squashed sandwich aside.

The repairs on the ship would be finished sooner rather than later. Noctis and the others would be well on their way to Altissia before long, and something about that filled Cor with a certain sense of dread. These murders had been too close to Cape Caem for his own comfort, but having a vague idea who it was who was lurking around between the cape and Galdin Quay was… not relieving the slightest. There was a covenant to be forged, a goddess of the sea to impress for the prince, but Cor knew for a fact that if word about this reached the young man’s ears he would drop everything to investigate it.

Cor, on the other hand, was not going to let Drautos get close to the prince – not after he had murdered Noctis’ parents.

He folded his hands and cleared his throat.

“Well. I’m quite certain we are all thinking the same thing, but let me ask anyway.” Both the hunter and the Glaive looked at him. “Verus is a hunter employed by a nearby sanctuary to investigate this. You are a former member of the Kingsglaive, Ostium. I am the Marshal of the Crownsguard, however much of it remains. The three of us have a different premise, but we are looking into the same thing. Thus, I suggest… an alliance. Let us take care of Titus Drautos together before he can reach whatever he is trying to get to, and avenge the dead he left in his wake – both inside and outside Insomnia. Even if revenge will not ease the living or the dead, crimes like treason cannot go unanswered.”

Verus nodded. “Sure, ‘s long as I get paid. … Ha! Just kidding, of course I’ll help you.”

Libertus looked uneasy for a second. He then took a deep breath. “It’s… the least I can do. The least I _should_ do after Insomnia.”

Yet another group of people sitting around a campfire that included Cor. Yet another talk of plans, of what they needed to do.

Crackle, crackle.

* * *

They wound up deciding that someone needed to play bait. After a few days of watching and coming across yet another corpse, they reached a decision.

Drautos would immediately recognise both Libertus and Cor, leaving only one possible person for bait. He sounded less than pleased by that, but Verus agreed on it much to Cor’s surprise. While the hunter was friendly enough he was also rather hard to work with – he rarely agreed to conventional tactics and was one of the worst loners amongst the hunters. It made sense, seeing that he was universally reborn as hunter taking care of local pests and Daemons, and one of his worst deaths had included trusting more than one person at a time on top of a huge automated Daemon. Cor couldn’t exactly blame him for these tendencies after Doomtrain, and especially not after how his teacher in his life and Prompto’s adoptive father had died in the end. Still, having Verus agree on a plan that could very easily cost him his life was… surprising.

“Well, isn’t like I got anything to lose. The kid I found’s been taken care of, my old partner’s dead, might as well put my neck in the noose and hope you guys pull me out before they hang me, eh?”

Libertus was eventually decided to be the lookout. With his leg he wouldn’t be much of a help in a fight, and having someone on back-up meant that he could easily call the numbers Cor had slid him during the preparations to call the remaining and scattered members of the Crownsguard and appraise them of the situation on hand. Surely at least Monica would try to take the traitor down.

Which left Cor as the one to actually engage the man in case they found him. He certainly didn’t mind that, but fighting a Niff commander all on his own? Gilgamesh was one thing, but Gilgamesh had had enough honour to make it a fair enough fight. A man on the run from both the empire and the kingdom’s remaining forces who slaughtered people who simply got too close for comfort was something else.

Were he younger he would have found himself preparing a speech like heroes in films or books. How he was going to fight him to the death with no holding back, with the sun setting in the background. A battle against time, because once the Daemons arrived there was no way he could win. A one-on-one fight of honour, of righteousness. With good always winning over evil, no questions asked. He would’ve faced him head on.

Instead it was noon, the sun was burning bright above their heads. Verus had all but been chucked off the nearby cliff, Libertus had most likely crept around and was trying to find a way down there to help the hunter. It was Cor and Drautos, standing in the middle of the street that went along the sea. In the very distance, Cape Caem, where Iris, Talcott and the others were, with Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto hunting somewhere further in Lucis.

No grand villainous speeches that Cor had to find a perfect rebuttal for. This wasn’t an action thriller starring him in the main protagonist role and Drautos in the main antagonist role.

This was the Marshal against the General. No flowery talk of revenge. No civilians around that were in danger. Just a hunter and a Glaive, somewhere beyond the cliff. Possibly only a Glaive, if Verus had not hit water but solid rock down there.

The sun burned like a campfire in the night, but Cor simply blinked.

“You murdered the king and delivered Insomnia to her enemies. I assume you do know that you will not walk from here alive if you do not kill me first, Titus Drautos.”

A wheeze. The man had injuries that looked like they had barely healed or were plain infected. He coughed and spat black phlegm. Starscourge. If he just fled that despicable human being would die, turn into a mindless Daemon at the mercy of the Accursed.

“I would expect nothing less, Cor Leonis.”

* * *

“ _That is what Starscourge does. Do you now understand why I was hesitant to let anyone accompany me?”_

“ _Y-Yes.”_

“… _Still, I’m grateful. You saved my life just there, Vigilis.”_

“ _It is but my duty, Your Highness. And there is no reason for you to be so polite – I am your subordinate.”_

“ _Cor, then. But call me by my first name when we’re not in public.”_

“ _As you wish.”_

“… _Just… one thing, Cor. One tiny, very little thing.”_

“ _Yes, Your Highness Ardyn?”_

“ _Not a word to another person. Most people who had it in the past and their families know what it means to contract the Scourge, or to mingle with Scourge-afflicted people. But the general public outside of these cases is as blissfully unaware as ever. We ought not spark a nation-wide, if not worldwide, panic. I can heal it without having to fear that those I am too late for will tear me into ribbons with you by my side.”_

“ _As you wish, Your Highness. My lips are sealed, come what may.”_

* * *

The bodies of people that had been afflicted with the Scourge that were not properly taken care of could turn into a Daemon postmortem. A night at a haven, with the body left somewhere in the dark beyond the sacred place. They were licking wounds – or in Verus’ case, saltwater.

The sun rose again in the morning, and regrettably enough nothing had dragged Drautos’ body off into the dark. Which meant they had to dispose of it properly. As much as Cor hated it, he started another fire. Way back, hundreds and thousands of years ago, bodies had been buried without having been burned. By the time Cor Vigilis had died and he had lived as Io, people had started burning bodies as well as heretics and traitors. It greatly reduced the chances of postmortem Daemons, which usually turned out to be terrifyingly strong compared to the average, run-of-the-mill Daemon that came from something like cattle afflicted with the Scourge.

Still, he found nothing as he put out the fire. No sense of justice. No relief. Regis’ and Clarus’ murderer was dead, but that wouldn’t bring back a king and his Shield. A week of hunting a man like some sort of animal had come to a close, but all Cor felt was disgust.

The sun had risen later than last week when he had run into Libertus Ostium, ironically enough. He wasn’t sure if the other two had noticed it or even cared – but Cor did, and he cared more than he wanted to admit. The loss of daylight was unsettling him more than it should have, and thus he breathed out a small sigh.

“Hey.”

Behind him, the hunter and the Glaive had finished packing up their makeshift camps. Verus was waving at Cor as they approached him.

“Not to worry, Marshal, I’ll report that the region is safe again. I’ll make up some fantastic story about a Daemon with a sword – they aren’t that unusual. Once I’ve done that, I’ll see our new friend here to Galahd. Four eyes’re better than two, after all?”

“Three legs are better than one, certainly.” As shaken and gloomy the Glaive looked, his humour was as dry as they came. Cor found himself cracking a grin.

At noon the two of them had left. Once they were out of earshot, Cor let out a sigh and kicked the remains of the fire.

“I can see you up there.”

Ever since the day before he’d felt like someone had been watching him. At first he had assumed that it had been Drautos, wary and careful. But even after the man had doubled over coughing and hacking and after Cor had run his katana through the man’s head the feeling didn’t subside. Eventually he figured out that someone wasn’t just watching him but also judging him.

“My, oh my. And here I thought I would blend into the environment.”

Cor wished he felt something, anything at all, when the Chancellor of Niflheim jumped off the tree he had been sitting in and stumbled after his rough landing. But he simply stared at the man he had once upon a lifetime sworn his allegiance to. Watched as Ardyn dusted himself off and walked closer with a grin that would have infuriated anyone else.

“I must quite applaud you – I was going to take care of this pesky rodent that scuttled out of Insomnia before I was done with my business, but you have done rather admirably there, Marshal.”

“Perhaps you should have made certain that the trap worked; then the rodent would not have escaped that easily.”

All the other man did was cackle and look into the sun.

“I wonder how much longer the days will last?”

Cor didn’t even acknowledge that and instead turned to pack up his things. He could hear the disappointed sigh.

“You used to be so much more fun as Vigilis.”

“And you certainly were less of a blatant murderer as Lucis Caelum.”

“Watch your tongue.”

“Only if you watch yours, Highness. You technically are on enemy ground, and I am a member of the opposing army, lost war or not.”

As Lucian he certainly should have killed the man where he stood. As citizen of Insomnia he should have especially done something to Ardyn Izunia. But Cor decided that this was not worth the trouble. It was quite clear that he was only here to rile him up – especially since the latest reports said that the army of Niflheim was making some sort of move onto Accordo. It made sense, given that they knew what Noctis was doing and that the shrine of Leviathan was in Altissia. If only Oracle Lunafreya had not gone missing.

When he finished packing up he finally looked at the Chancellor. That man looked older, much more tired than the prince he had accompanied several hundred lifetimes ago. The formerly hazel eyes had all but gone amber at this point, a slight hint to the man’s true identity underneath what must be but a costume. The hair was longer than it had been when Ardyn had been a prince, but it was shorter than it had been in quite a few of the lifetimes that Cor had come across the man. It didn’t seem like that much time had truly passed between Gaius and Ciel staring at each other on the train and Cor and Ardyn watching each other’s movements now.

Eventually, Cor caved.

“What do you want? Surely more than making sure we disposed of Glauca.”

Ardyn on the other hand put on the most falsely offended expression he could muster, and Cor cringed. “I go out of my way to ensure the Marshal lives, and that is how he thanks me?”

“You have done naught of the like. If he had killed me and my companions, you would have finished him off and sauntered away as you ever do as Chancellor Ardyn Izunia.”

“Touché. But yes, I merely came here to inform you that your princeling and his friends that play his protectors will be on their way back to your _lovely_ little hideout. The ship they will be sailing right into Leviathan’s fangs with has been finished. See? Nothing bad.”

Cor still narrowed his eyes, but then bowed slowly. He wasn’t going to let this man out of his eyes or turn his back to him. In the past this had more often than not killed him.

“I see. I shall be on my way back then. Was that all?”

The Chancellor waved his hand through the air, obviously thinking. “No. Since I do not think you will be accompanying the prince to Altissia, I reckon this might as well be the last time we see each other.”

The Marshal crossed his arms.

“Is that _regret_ I hear, Chancellor?”

A sour expression. Years and years and years ago they had been partners, and unlike Cor Ardyn had lived in the same body, with the same memories. Perhaps there was some sort of leftover sentiment from back then, and even with his memories intact Cor found that… very relieving. They had been close once, long before everything had driven a wedge between the former prince and his former protector. Just for a split moment he felt like he saw his charge once more instead of the person who would cloak the world in darkness.

That moment passed, and he found himself staring into glinting eyes.

“No. Whether you and your lot have told Izunia of my… _condition_ or not, I never found out. But you never once appeared to help me, which might as well count as treason.”

Cor shrugged. “If that’s all, I shall be leaving now.”

He didn’t even wait for a dismissal or anything of the kind. He simply picked up his things, shouldered them, and started walking towards his motorbike. He was on high alert, but Ardyn Izunia never once made a move and simply watched him.

“If I were you, Marshal, I would keep my eyes open. You’ve made certain that the body was burned today, but can the same be said of Insomnia? Who knows, perhaps another ghost of your past will come to haunt you.”


	18. Aranea - Nightlight

They didn’t recognise her.

She’d made up a million ways this could have gone, especially ones where their liege would hear their discussions. Those were the worst scenarios in her head, the ones where she had to lay open her past, where she would have to open up and her former liege would turn her life into living hell.

Nothing of the like happened. Neither Ignis not Prompto recognised Aranea the way she did – they immediately were wary around her, given that their previous encounter had been one where she had attacked them pretty much out of the blue. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed, but at the very least none of the scenarios she had made up in her head would happen. There was not a chance in hell that Chancellor Ardyn Izunia had any reason to make her life hell based on telling secrets.

At the very least they didn’t lag behind too much, nor did they get into her way. The prince – the king – especially seemed more than eager to keep up and prove that he was better than the trained mercenary. It was kind of endearing in a strange way, and Aranea more than humoured His Royal Majesty Noctis Lucis Caelum. At some point both Ignis and Prompto fell behind and urgently discussed something.

They were most likely unsettled by how familiar Aranea was, but they had not the slightest clue as to why they were feeling like this. Ignis especially managed to brush it off rather easily and jogged to catch up to her and the prince with a grin on his face. Prompto followed with a mildly distraught expression.

They didn’t recognise her, and surprisingly enough she didn’t mind that much.

There had been lifetimes where she had remembered before the others when they had met, and it had driven her near mad. These people she should have been able to speak to, to discuss things with, but they only called her by her given name in that life and acted according to what they were in that time – friends, colleagues, master and apprentice. The only thing they never were were lovers.

She shoved the prince out of the way of a scythe.

“Careful, or else you’ll be the king of the headless.”

He sneered at her.

Maybe she was trying to read too much into this, but at the very least one thing had not changed across generations of kings and queens. They were reliable, somehow. And very very likely to rush head first into danger, especially for something that the people around them viewed as minor. Noctis Lucis Caelum certainly had better things to do than go hunting for mythril in a dank, Daemon-infested ruin, she supposed. Yet here he was, shooting a ball of fire at the Reaper that had nearly cleaved his head off. Behind them Ignis and Prompto were working together to all but vaporise a pudding-tier Daemon. Aranea herself hated these with a burning passion, so she gave the two of them a thumbs-up once they were done. They nodded back at her.

Neither of them recognised her.

Maybe there were worse things than being stuck in a long-abandoned ruin together with who was supposedly the enemy.

* * *

She returned to Niflheim after dropping them off at Lestallum. The city itself sparkled during that night, almost a little too bright. It looked neat, but Aranea was under orders to return to base immediately after finishing her business, and she would rather not start a fight with commanders and other members of the army. Her payment depended on her being on time as well, and her entire crew looked at her kind of funny when she didn’t give the immediate order for retreat.

“What’re you clowns looking at? You know our orders, and I want them done, now!”

The entire way back to Niflheim she spent brooding. She was the last member of her band, and the rest of her merry little crew were either members of Biggs’ and Wedge’s, or mercenaries that refused to be integrated into the army alongside their leaders when they chose to do so. As far as Aranea knew they were one of the last ten official mercenary bands in all of Niflheim – the rest had joined the military officially. She had never really entertained that thought. Doing that meant that she would start again as common soldier; as leader of a mercenary band she had a rather high position in the military, all things considered. Commodores could act as they pleased unless there were direct orders from the High Commander or the head scientist of the MT program; and if nothing else, the current High Commander barely bothered with issuing commands to her.

Not that Aranea minded, really.

He was, after all, a son of Tenebrae. As she had learned first as Fa, and then a few times again in other lives, the Nox Fleuret family and the Oracles were under the strict impression that it was better to return a Dreamer to the cycle than let them muck about in the pages of history. Perhaps it was some sort of precaution for the time the Chosen One arrived, to make certain there were enough bodies around for Bahamut and Carbuncle to toss out – it didn’t seem that unreasonable, considering how Oracles conversed with the gods as if it was nothing. Aranea Highwind certainly could do without yet another dagger in her ribcage, however. She kept quiet, and other than the sarcastic Lucian greeting for a higher up she kept her encounters with the High Commander and the Chancellor to a minimum.

Ardyn was getting notoriously hard to dodge for someone who didn’t have control over the military. Perhaps he was egging on Nox Fleuret somehow – it was his sister the empire was after, after all – and the High Commander seemed to tolerate the man… barely.

Aranea on the other hand knew what Ardyn looked and acted like when he clearly had the upper hand. While Nox Fleuret and the military brushed off the nuisance that was the Chancellor easily enough, there was no denying he was tying up a noose right around their very necks. MTs took over most things at this point, the very thing he helped create and that gave him this position in the empire. Military leaders, commanders and she herself were more often than not sent out to extract more Daemons.

Aranea didn’t know much about the Starscourge, but she knew enough to be alarmed. Recent reports all over Gralea had talked about chunks of the citizenry vanishing without a trace, leaving naught but the clothes they wore behind. The higher ups in Niflheim, right up to the emperor were clueless as to what was happening all around their grand city in the heart of the empire. But Aranea knew. She knew there was an infestation going around, that Ardyn had somehow planned all of this almost deliberately to turn the empire into dust. He had to have his hands in this, in preparation for something regarding Noctis.

She refused to believe that this young man would willingly slaughter the turned population of the enemy empire, however. Surely enough, he didn’t like Daemons. No one did, not even her. But there was something inexplicably gentle about Noctis; there was something about the way he had always made certain that his companions in that dank ruin were okay.

It reminded her a little of Ardyn in the past, with the sole exception that Noctis had nothing to offer when it came to the Scourge. Surely enough, Lucis had figured out how to create something they called potions that healed non-fatal injuries. Across Lucis were also the remainders of the tribe of Phoenixes, the minor Astral that could raise the dying. No potion or elixir could close a fatal wound, but if one came across an ever shining feather of a Phoenix, that could close the wound.

A Healer could do all of that without little priceless trinkets. She’d heard people who had survived encounters with the former king and his personal guard say that all Regis had lacked was the power to heal the dying. Apparently even the enemy nation Niflheim, the people who had orchestrated that man’s death, had a measure of respect for him. Especially after the way the peace treaty had gone.

Surely enough he and his entire council, right down to the youngest member, had died in the crossfire and the fighting. High Commander Glauca had personally seen to taking care of the Kingsglaive, the King’s Shield and the king himself – but even with a losing hand King Regis Lucis Caelum had somehow managed to outsmart enough people to entrust the ring to Oracle Lunafreya before his death.

Which would explain why the new High Commander Ravus Nox Fleuret looked rather agitated when Aranea and her crew arrived.

“Nothing to report. The crew’s gonna take the _specimens_ to the production centre, High Commander.”

“I see.”

His sister was on the run with a ring that held the future of the world. The very ring that Ardyn’s father and after him Izunia had carried. She was most likely in or on her way to Altissia at this point, but Ravus had not made a move to the city yet.

Which intrigued Aranea.

She knew better than to pester a higher up in the Niff army, however. She hadn’t been born completely yesterday – that was more trouble than it was worth. The High Commander especially was one of the least approachable people in the army. She unhooked part of her armour and stretched.

“Next time don’t send us into such a ruin. I almost wanted to go on an excavating mission rather than search and extract for specimens.”

Ravus Nox Fleuret was staring at her, but not into her face.

With a small jolt of terror Aranea realised she had taken off the part of her armour that covered her Mark of the Dreamer. Nobody in all of Niflheim would recognise that even if she held it right in front of their noses – except for Ardyn and Ravus.

And he was the son of a family that killed Dreamers for a reason she didn’t quite understand.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Duly noted. There is something else I wish to discuss, however. If you would be so kind, Commodore, meet me in my office in an hour.”

The mercenaries that were starting to drag the cages off the airship stopped. The entire hangar was oddly quiet as Aranea let out a small curse.

“Fuck! Oh Six, I’m fucked!”

* * *

“ _Did you ever learn why she did that?”_

“ _Do I look like a miracle worker to you, Prompto? Of course I didn’t. I have no clue why Concordia was obligated to kill me when I was Fa; she certainly never really told me. And frankly, it’s a miracle how nobody ever found you out and did the same to you when you were Aster!”_

“ _I was a hunter in a thinly populated strip of the country. Hunters all succumb to the Scourge, and I was already infected by the time I met Lord Ardyn – he knew that, and I knew it as well. And thanks to my blunder he learned how we were still around. I’d say I got it good that life on the ‘killed in Tenebrae as Dreamer’ front.”_

“ _Blah. I just wish I understood why Tenebrae was like that.”_

“ _Mhm. I dunno. Maybe there’s something about conversing with the Six that we don’t get, seeing as we’re in constant contact with a minor Astral and never really have long enough lives for that to matter?”_

“ _Hrrm. Maybe, maybe not.”_

“ _Not to worry Aranea, seeing as how all this is going, we might live long enough to find it out.”_

“ _That’s not reassuring me the slightest, man!”_

* * *

She was expecting some kind of throwing dagger when she opened the door. Maybe an arrow embedded in her heart, a sword slicing through her guts.

Nothing of the like happened; Ravus Nox Fleuret was standing with his back to her instead. If it hadn’t happened to her in the past, that would have relaxed her – turning your back onto someone was pretty much a sign of non-aggression in Niflheim. But Aranea was wary around Tenebraens, especially the technical leader of the country. He was still her superior, so she cleared her throat and bowed after closing the door.

“Considering the way you reacted and are reacting right now, this is definitely not the first time you are alone with Tenebraen royalty or an Oracle. I can assure you,” he finally turned around, “I am unarmed, Commodore.”

“Sure. That sword at your side’s just for show.”

He cracked a smile at her, and she finally looked him in the eyes. He looked rather tired for someone who was on the winning side of a war. It made sense, given that his beloved little sister was still on the run after being nearly married off to the prince of Lucis.

“If you remove your lance I am more than ready to remove this sword.”

“The Infernian and the Glacian would sooner rise from the dead and start making out on your pretty little desk. No, High Commander, I refuse.”

A moment of silence, and then he let out a snort. “You mercenary types always have the best sort of way to put it. Anyone else would try to lick my boots, not bring up the very vivid image of the Infernian and the Glacian making out on my desk. But, I suppose that’s not why I called you here. Please, sit down.”

She was still wary around him. He had been promoted after the fall of Insomnia in the wake of General Glauca’s demise. A pale man from Tenebrae who had but recently lost his arm. Ardyn had almost graciously said that they were developing a fully functional prosthetic for him thanks to the marvel of Magitek. While Aranea didn’t mind taking orders from someone younger than her, something about taking orders from a Nox Fleuret brought up the less pleasant memories from her time as Fa.

He probably understood that, seeing as he sat down first on his chair to give her a sense of security. A sitting man with a prosthetic arm wouldn’t be faster than a standing mercenary. Perhaps he was trying to lull her into trusting him – if nothing else, Nox Fleurets were rather shrewd when they needed to be. It was clear that someone related to the very dodgy Tenebraen Oracle Lunafreya could outsmart a Dreamer who knew how Dreamers were handled in Tenebrae.

“Now then. That Mark of the Dreamer on your arm… I am merely curious.”

“…”

“I assume you’ve definitely seen what happens to known Dreamers in Tenebrae, just by the way you’re eyeing me and how you keep sitting in a way that allows you to jump to your feet fast enough to bolt, should I suddenly pull a weapon on you. Commodore… Aranea Highwind, was it?”

“Yes, High Commander.”

He drummed his fingers – the ones that were still real flesh and not some Magitek creation – on the desk with a hum. She’d never paid much attention to him, but she couldn’t deny he had an attractive face. Typically Tenebraen light hair with equally light eyes. Except that one of his was the most unusual shade of violet; light enough to pass as the same blue if someone didn’t look at him too closely, but strikingly different once one looked closer. If it weren’t for the bags under his eyes she would have assumed that he definitely took proper care of himself to uphold the good looks. Indeed, once he started frowning she could see that he spent most of his time doing so. While still attractive enough, he looked a lot more tired than she first assumed.

“I do apologise for what has happened to you in another life. We are not in Tenebrae, I sincerely swear on my mother’s name that I will not harm you. You could just say I am… curious about something.”

“I have no obligation to answer you unless you pay me, pretty boy. I’m a mercenary hired by Emperor Aldercapt, but outside of battle commands everything else costs extra.”

He stopped frowning. She was still rather nervous and expecting a weapon pulled on her, but at the very least he looked amused by now.

“Very well. I shall consider your proposal, Commodore Highwind. You can expect your extra payment in a few days, unless you have something other than monetary value in mind.”

She sputtered as he smirked into her face.

“I see, I see. Well, in any case, you will find what you desire on your desk in a few days. Now that the payment issue has been settled, permit me a question: Is that truly a Mark of the Dreamer? There are stories of bastard children with Royalty’s Mark, after all.”

Aranea took a deep breath. “No, that is… a Mark of the Dreamer. This certainly isn’t my first skit. Question back: Why do you Nox Fleurets and the Oracles kill us Dreamers?”

He drummed his fingers on the desk again and looked out of a window. It was dark in Gralea; she hadn’t even noticed it was after nightfall already. There were rarely any people out in the streets at night, and you could certainly not see them from Zegnautus Keep.

“We were given the duty to support the kings and queens of Lucis in their preparation for the coming of the Chosen. The Draconian promised the first Oracle during the time between the Gracious and the Founder that the Dreamers alive and waiting to be returned to life would all… be sent out for the Chosen. By making sure they do not complete their objective we could more or less control who would be around at the time. Granted, no country other than Accordo ever employed the same stance on Dreamers, and Accordo only did so rather recently in history.”

Prompto had said so. He’d arrived last in one particularly unlucky run-around where none of them had lived to 15. Those happened rarely, but Prompto had sobbed out that he had been executed for having a Mark. They’d assumed he had lived in Tenebrae once more, but when he told them he had been in Accordo, all four of them had paused. That made living rather unsafe, even if it didn’t matter in the long run. They’d be back.

“I… see.”

“If you permit the curiosity, how many times have you been in Tenebrae and been discovered?”

“Thrice. Twice as commoner, once as...” She fell silent for a moment. Despite it having been so long ago, she remembered Concordia’s face as if she was standing right before her. “… once as hunter.”

“… I was never quite a fan of that custom. Dreamers are no different than royalty in the long run; we are all marked by Carbuncle for protection of a sort.”

She raised an eyebrow. For a moment she’d forgotten he too would have a Mark, much like Noctis and King Regis would have had. Ravus noticed her look and snorted.

“Off with the arm; it was in that hand’s palm. The Lucii made quite certain I would lose the protection.”

Which explained his hesitation about being in the field unless he was looking for his sister. Aranea wasn’t quite sure if his blood would still carry the pact between royalty and Carbuncle if the Mark on his body was gone; she always died when someone had severed her arm in the past. But given how the gods played with people… He could have easily lost that protection.

“That’s not why you called me here though, is it.”

He started frowning again. It was a pity that it messed with his rather pretty face. “No. I was merely… wondering if you thought that Lunafreya could be… one of you.”

“… You’re wondering if your sister is a Dreamer rather than simple royalty?”

“Yes.”

Aranea shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know. Dreamers generally don’t meet or know of each other unless they started together. During my long time I’ve met precisely zero other Dreamers, at least to my knowledge. And as pretty as your sister is, I am quite certain I have never once met someone who bore a striking resemblance to her. But that doesn’t have to mean anything. … Why, though? Why are you wondering if your sister’s a Dreamer?”

He stood up once more and walked over to the window.

“Sometimes she just… looks so far away. Like she knows things she shouldn’t.” He sighed so quietly that Aranea wasn’t sure if she hadn’t imagined it. “You are dismissed, Commodore. About your payment, I’ll bring it to you in a few days.”

She stood up and bowed. “Very… well?”

Much to her surprise he turned around and offered her a smile. “Although I definitely would not object to hearing about your little… escapades in the past.”

“Only if you pay me.”

“Deal.”

Despite being royalty that killed Dreamers on sight, Aranea found herself wearing an odd smile when she returned to her fellow mercenaries. Something about that High Commander was… endearing, somehow? Perhaps she’d humour his little request – if the payment was right, naturally.

* * *

“That… does sound rather amazing.”

“Yeah, it sure was! Other than nearly drowning, I mean.”

“No, Commodore, it does sound absolutely breathtaking. Not many people can talk about that kind of stuff, but an Accordan pirate? That’s like a history lesson for free.”

“Tsk, you do know you’re paying me for that.”

“Of course. Now then, how did that life end?”

“Skewered on a sword and tossed into the sea to be fodder for the sea serpent.”

“Ah. Of course. That was how other nations handled Accordan pirates, wasn’t it?”

“Precisely. Although I’ll never forget that pretty little face of hers as she skewered me. Man, that sure was a Niff beauty, I tell you, High Commander. And to answer your next question, no. Not your sister, they didn’t even look alike the slightest. Dark skin, dark hair, the darkest brown eyes you can imagine. Much taller than your sister too – that’s the thing about being a Dreamer. You always look similar to what you looked like when you first lived.”

“Ah? Truly?”

“I tell you, that silver hair’s all nice and exotic, but all these people asking me if I go grey early in nearly every damn life of mine are _infuriating_!”

“Haha, I can imagine that.”

“You’ve got a pretty laugh when you’re not scowling, High Commander.”

“Likewise, Commodore. Whenever you tell these stories they certainly sound like you had fun, despite all the hardships.”

* * *

Aranea and her mercenaries sat together. They had not been given orders to make ready for Altissia but they made sure that their airship would not be used for it. She’d watched all these people prepare with a scowl, and nearly growled once she saw droves of MTs being loaded onto the airships.

“What the hell are they making ready for? Fighting the darn snake in her own waters?”

“Precisely that.”

The mercenaries all nearly jumped to their feet for a salute when Ravus walked by them. He looked even more tired than before and was followed by Ardyn. Aranea saluted as well and exchanged a nasty glare with the Chancellor.

“If I may then, High Commander, why are we not being deployed?”

Ravus opened his mouth, but it was Ardyn who instead answered. “ _Someone_ needs to watch the capital while the army is out fighting the important battles. The mercenaries surely are more than enough for a little _housekeeping_.”

She nearly started growling again but bowed instead. He had no power over the army but he was still her superior, technically.

“I see. Thank you for the answer and the… _trust_ , Chancellor. And good luck to you, High Commander.”

Ravus Nox Fleuret would definitely not return alive. She definitely felt a pang go through her body when she saw him board a ship bound for Altissia.

Maybe she’d ended up enjoying his company in the last month more than she’d thought.

What returned were three airships. One was the Chancellor’s, and the man was in an infuriatingly good mood. It was easy enough to guess that he had his dirty hands in the death of the Oracle and the coma the Lucian king was in currently after being washed away by the current. Perhaps he’d been the one to enrage Leviathan to begin with – that would definitely explain why he seemed to be grinning from one ear to the other as he got off the airship.

The next one was full of half-broken MTs and a hysterically sobbing pilot. That woman had been Tenebraen and had worked her way up to be a pilot with nothing but skill and determination. She’d shared a drink with Aranea once or twice, and Aranea scowled as she watched her pass. That woman was definitely not going to fly another airship ever again, not after the Oracle’s death.

The last one had a handful of soldiers – and the High Commander. He looked like he hadn’t slept a day since the summoning a week ago. The soldiers nearly dragged him along as he looked as if he was in a daze. His eyes were vacant and his expression rigid. That definitely didn’t look like the same man she’d spent nearly a month with during the evenings and nights.

* * *

Aranea Highwind decided she had enough. A month, a long month, and the empire was finally going fully cuckoo, as Wedge had put it. She hadn’t seen other soldiers in so long that she was worried the next people she’d not see would be her fellow mercenaries. Thus she’d issued a simple command: The job was done, they were going to get out of here.

Remaining as mercenaries had given her and her group more than enough money to purchase two more airships, and they offered the few people they actually came across a means to get out of Gralea. They said they had been employed by hunters from Tenebrae and would be going there. Three days before her actual departure, she was packing her things up. Perhaps they could leave earlier if everyone else had the same thought as her, and she tossed her belongings into a crate. It wasn’t much, but more than enough to fill it.

It was long after midnight – the nights were getting longer and longer – when she heard a soft knock on her door.

“Come in.”

She hadn’t seen him since his return. Nearly immediately afterwards he had been sentenced to death, but seeing as the emperor also never appointed another High Commander everyone just let him walk around as he pleased. He looked more like a ghost than anything else by now, paler than ever. Perhaps it was just her and the darkness playing tricks on her, but she thought she saw the slightest yellow glint in his eyes after he had closed the door again.

Ravus looked, in her own words, shit. He definitely looked utter shit, with his formerly pretty face sunken and his back just the slightest bit bent. He definitely looked like someone the universe had stomped on repeatedly and he had no one to blame but himself. And probably Ardyn, Ardyn always had his hands in things that went awry lately.

“I hear you… and yours… are leaving?”

“We are. This is a complete and utter shitshow, and we’re getting out while we still can. Buncha Daemons escaped from the Keep the other day, and we’re using that as an excuse that we were… hired by someone else. Emperor Aldercapt sure as hell didn’t give a damn about me proclaiming that. Muttered something about his crystal. I ain’t ever _seen_ the damn thing, Ravus!”

He nodded slowly. “They keep it locked up, after all.”

Aranea offered him to sit down on her bed. He moved just as quickly as ever, but he looked like some sort of poltergeist doing do. He almost tripped over a lance of hers.

“That’s an… unusual design.”

“Belonged to my good-for-nothing teacher Magni Tummelt. I’m almost tempted to leave it behind.”

“Right, right. Now I remember, you told me about it. My bad, I should have recognised it. But, if you do choose to leave it behind, I can see it returned to his son, at the very least.”

Aranea sneered. “So the brat can use it to skewer my partner in Dreamer business? Hell no, I’m taking it with me and dumping it out of the airship in that case.”

Ravus looked surprised. Aranea realised a moment too late that she had said more than she meant to.

“Oh, fuck.”

“I assume you never meant to tell me that you and Lucis’ so-called Immortal shared the same… what did you call it, in-between campfire sessions?”

She buried her face in her hands. “Yeah. I’m in a team of four. Hand me that thing on the wall there, that’s a lucky charm my first commander had with him. A keepsake.”

Ravus removed it from the wall and handed it to her. He thankfully dropped the topic and instead asked how he could help her pack. There was something oddly calming about packing her belongings together with the High Commander; it at the very least seemed to distract him as well. He was still a man sentenced to death and awaiting it almost with scary patience. Once most her belongings were stuffed into the crate, they sat down on the bed again. This room had been her personal space for so long it felt wrong to see it this empty, and Aranea folded her hands in her lap uneasily.

“When will you be leaving then, Aranea?”

“Three days. Earlier if everyone else is already all packed up.”

He nodded and took a look around the around the room as well. “I see.”

They sat there for a few minutes, shoulder to shoulder, and looked at the nearly empty room. It almost sounded like some ridiculous love story where she would suggest they run away together now. But Aranea knew that even if she did – and surprisingly enough she wanted to – he would simply say that he needed to stay for some reason or another. Maybe to keep an eye on the emperor until his time was up. Most likely it was related to the sword he carried; she’d learned that it had been King Regis’. Of course he would want to return it to the previous owner.

Still, she took a deep breath eventually.

“Won’t you come with us? The emperor’s so out of it, nobody would notice you’re missing.”

“I need to stay.” It was exactly as she had expected. “We cannot be sure that Noctis will stop in Tenebrae; I would assume his retainers would urge him not to go there. But I need to return his father’s sword to him. I should have much earlier, when I still had the chance. But I truly believed him to be… unfitting for the task. I was foolish to believe so. He is more than worthy, and all it took for me to see that was Lunafreya’s undying loyalty take her literally to a watery grave.”

There was barely any daylight left. The Accursed was closer than ever to his assumed goal of leaving the world in eternal darkness, and all it had taken was killing the High Commander’s beloved little sister whom he would have uprooted all of Lucis for.

Eventually Aranea leaned her head against his shoulder. “You know… I lied. I wasn’t a hunter in Tenebrae, ever.”

He said nothing and she let out a long sigh.

“I was just a citizen back then. There was a mob of Daemons that people called the Accursed. But the real Accursed had nothing to do with that swirling maelstrom of destruction. Lucis sent a group of scholars and fighters to study it, and one of the people I keep getting reborn with was part of that. I remembered eventually but he never did – the fool actually fell in love with me. Long story short, they all got slaughtered and I was all alone in the world.”

Her voice failed her at that part and she buried her face in her hands.

“Recent historians were wondering if Oracle Concordia’s personal guard and lover Fa truly committed suicide. There were mentions of how Tenebrae has this history of killing Dreamers and sweeping it under the rug.”

Aranea Highwind, normally unmoveable as a rock, had started crying.

“They’re right. It was Oracle Concordia who killed her own guardian.”

She hadn’t expected much out of him, maybe a sound of recognition, or just some sort of dismissive hum. She hadn’t expected Ravus to gently pry her hands off her face and look her deep in the eyes.

“You were Fa.”

“I was. I was Fa, once upon a lifetime.”

She never tried to think much about it. Ravus and Concordia looked nothing alike, not even remotely. Just as Noctis did not look like Izunia, just as Gladiolus looked nothing like his distant relative that had been glued to Izunia’s side. The only ones that looked similar across time were Dreamers; men and women who led different lives but all sought an end to that existence by seeing their desire fulfilled.

“That long?”

“Longer. Fa was not my first life. Nor my second. But it certainly was one of the ones that broke my heart more than I can bear. You lose your sense of self, under that crashing wake of the memories. Aranea Highwind and Fa both remembered early, and they never once questioned it. I have a duty – Fa had a completely shattered mind even before that.”

The only thing that was similar was the look he gave her. It looked like these forlorn ones that Concordia would wear once in a while when she and Aranea had been on their own. Back when there was nothing between them, no daggers, no Marks. Nothing.

Whenever Concordia talked of seeing more than just Tenebrae she would look like this. The same expression, and suddenly it was obvious that she and Ravus were related.

“Commodore Aranea Highwind is not Fa, though. You are not your past lives – you’re not your past. I admit I was curious at first because I never met a Dreamer without having to kill them – which was twice before Tenebrae fell, and my mother took care of that. But once you started telling me all of that on your own accord, I was… bewitched, you could say. You managed to completely entangle me in that web of yours. There was much I learned through it, yes. But first and foremost I learned that… Tenebrae was wrong. The Draconian was wrong. We should have never… killed all these Dreamers. It doesn’t undo what has been done, and my remorse comes way too late. But I--”

Aranea didn’t know why she had kissed him that night. Perhaps it was long overdue – there had been rumours ever since they’d started meeting at night. Some people who didn’t like her remaining a mercenary were starting to whisper about her quite literally fucking her way to the top; not that Aranea needed to do that. She was without equal in the army of Niflheim, since any other dragoons had all died in battle, and the few that remained had fled Niflheim together with their groups.

Aranea would join them, and Ravus would remain to die. He had no intention of surviving this, and she could understand that.

It didn’t stop her from staring at Gralea vanish in what little daylight that remained with the same forlorn look she’d seen on both Concordia’s and Ravus’ faces.

* * *

“He’s limping.”

“Indeed.”

Gladiolus had buggered off to speak to Biggs and Wedge about the operation that was before them. Aranea herself was watching Noctis Lucis Caelum drag himself across a bridge to a small alcove where a servant of house Fleuret was waiting for him.

Beside her stood Ignis, amazingly enough still standing straight. She would have loved to look him in the eyes once he remembered their past, but that dream was dashed.

“I would assume that _the Chancellor_ awaits you in Gralea.”

He snorted. “Which is why we would prefer travelling without civilians. It is already bad enough we involved them in that little… skit.”

“You nearly got bombed wide open.”

Aranea saw him shake his head. “I know.”

“And Prompto fell off.”

“I know.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

And finally she got her answer out of Ignis, even if indirectly.

“Knowing Ardyn – _truly_ knowing Ardyn now – he most likely is. He has some sort of plan to further rile Noct up against him, and after two thousand years? I would be getting impatient too if my opponent were that… lax. Gentle. Caring.”

“...”

“He rushed ahead in the last place. He took out all these monsters while Prompto helped me along. All on his own, and Gladio just… Gladio just beat him further up for it. Noctis is finally getting impatient, choppy. Angry. Ardyn is nearly at his goal.”

Aranea put a hand on Ignis’ shoulder.

“Are we, though?”

Noctis had finally vanished from her sight, and Ignis turned around to follow Gladiolus who was not calling for him.

“I don’t know, Aranea. I don’t know. We might be further away from seeing the Accursed’s madness end than we have ever before in the last two thousand years.”

She watched him leave and stood there kind of dejectedly for a while, until Noctis returned his his head hung held higher than before, with his shoulders quaking as if under some unseen weight. This was the king she had to put her faith into, and Aranea was not certain if he would truly withstand a man with two thousand years of anger behind him.

Noctis just looked way too small for that.


	19. Ignis - Sounds of the Past

“Say, Ignis? Is it just me or is this… Aranea… kind of strange?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Prompto.”

“We’re coming, we’re coming, keep pushing ahead you two! No, but seriously, something about her bugs me.”

“Weren’t you all over the moon about how gorgeous she was just about a week ago, Prompto?”

“Yeah, yeah, she still is, hoo boy, but… I feel like I’ve seen her before.”

“Well, yes. About three weeks ago, as we were infiltrating that imperial--”

“That’s not what I mean! I feel like I’ve met her before. But I’ve lived in Insomnia all my life, I never even left the city until we set out together, and I’m damn sure I’ve not heard as much as a mutter about her. Yet I feel like this isn’t the first time I’m working with her.”

“… Well, I can understand that. I… feel the same. Something about the way she fights just feels familiar, even if she is… without equal in the Lucian army, other than the Marshal. … Yes, we’re coming!”

“Buzz off, Noct, we were just checking if there was a Daemon lagging behind ready to strike! But yeah, you too?”

“Yes. Now, let us hurry before he gets any more impatient and warps onto one of us.”

“Ugh, the way you say that, you make it sound like you’d either expect him to knock me out – or that you’d love to have him sit on you. Don’t smirk at me like that.”

* * *

Perhaps it were the calm evenings and nights they spent at the campfire that he would miss the most. They were on their way back to Caem, having just received a text from Iris that the work on the ship had been finished. They were finally sea-worthy, effectively, and that meant they would beard said ship and head to Altissia where Noctis and Lunafreya would bargain with Leviathan. The goddess of the sea would be anything but a nice, friendly conversational partner like Ramuh had been, if history and Noctis were to be believed.

He leaned back into his chair.

There it was again, that throbbing headache that had haunted him ever since they’d parted ways with Aranea in Lestallum. Prompto had a point – he truly felt like he had met the woman before. Ignis knew that this was just plain impossible. Rational thought was necessary for one who aspired to be the king’s advisor; and rationally he knew that any familiarity between him and Aranea was simple conjecture. Perhaps he was trying to project someone from the Citadel onto her. Most likely Clarus Amicitia; both of them had the same commanding tone.

“And the Marshal truly let you keep his old sword?”

“Hey, you think I’d bugger him till he gave it to me?”

“Precisely. I can very much see you doing that.”

“C’mon, Iggy, I wouldn’t do that. I offered it back to him, basically!”

Prompto snorted in his chair. “Sure. The way you told it it sounded like you just called him old!”

“Not my words; those were the Blademaster’s!”

Headache or not, he would miss these times. Just the four of them, with Noctis nearly asleep in his chair and already dozing off. With Prompto and Gladiolus nearly starting a fist fight as they started making fun of each other.

Nothing but the… crackle… of the campfire…

Ignis stood up. That headache certainly was getting to him and he rubbed his temples.

“Noct.” Perhaps a distraction would work now. “Noct, please. Can you try getting up and at least sleeping in the tent?”

“… No. Carry me, Specs.”

* * *

Thirty years ago, Prince Regis and his entourage had failed at trying to rekindle a full alliance between Accordo and Lucis. He remembered asking Cor about it, but the Marshal had merely pressed his lips together tightly. Thus he barely knew what had actually caused the prince and the others to come back to Lucis with their tails between their legs and with Cor just about running off to challenge the Blademaster in the same timespan.

The waters in Altissia gleamed like a sapphire, and the warm sun was not by any means unpleasant. There were rows of flowerpots and decorations adorning the streets of the city as they walked about, with Prompto ooh-ing and aah-ing all the way down. Insomnia had a different kind of flair, but Altissia was positively stunning for a first-time visit. Especially for a child of the Crown City like Prompto was. He was dragging Noctis around by his arms, taking photos of everything, with Gladio jogging after the two.

Ignis had fallen behind. Something about that peace felt just a little… too surreal to be true. Accordo was officially under Niff control, and soon enough he saw a handful soldiers walking the streets. They would not start a brawl in the middle of the city with Accordan peacekeepers nearby. Thankfully enough Noctis and Prompto had entered some sort of flower shop by now and were discussing a flower that was native to Accordo. That at least looked enough like a bunch of harmless tourists, and Ignis relaxed slightly to turn to look at a display.

Gladiolus walked up next to him.

“That was close.”

“Not as close as you would think it was.” He gestured vaguely in a way that Gladiolus would understand, and the King’s Shield raised an eyebrow once he realised.

“I see. Still, I feel like something’s… watchin’ us.”

There was no denying the Chancellor was in this city. Perhaps it was him, just standing on some roof and making sure nothing happened. A cold shudder ran down Ignis spine as he looked at the display again. A handful spices from all over the world. The seller, a young woman about his age, started excitedly talking about them. Tenebraen and Niff spices were non-existent in Lucis at this point. Blockades and the fact that King Mors, in his last weeks, had forbidden the import of good from Niflheim-controlled countries, had all but eradicated these spices, fruit and vegetables, and much more from shops in Insomnia and Lucis. They were at war, of course. Money that went out of Lucis and into Niflheim was considered a substantial loss that could have gone into fortifying Lucis as a whole.

He listened to her talk about the spices. Something about how that one was grown in the outskirts of Niflheim, where the snow hadn’t reached entirely yet. Killing the Glacian, she noted, had all but killed most vegetation exports and Niflheim kept most that survived to themselves. It was necessary, of course, to ensure that the country that waged war against the rest of Eos could win and not starve within its own borders. She sounded so proud to have gotten her hands on that particular spice.

Its price was… equally high. It was a rare good, after all.

Next to that were Tenebraen berries and a certain root that was usually used in broths and the like after being ground up. Ignis had read about it, but this was the first time he saw it… he thought. He definitely heard a nondescript voice in the back of his head talking about how it was poisonous unless it was specifically treated – the girl running the stand said that a few minutes later and assured him that these roots were all perfectly treated.

He blinked.

How on Eos did he know that, and about a plant that he had only read about? The book had not mentioned any of the sort – he had memorised what was potentially dangerous.

Still, Ignis nodded at her and pretended to listen to her explanation of some other Tenebraen plant. He was rather certain that the way she described its usage was incorrect, but he decided to humour her. Gladiolus was trying to drag Prompto and Noctis out of the flower shop across the canal.

There was that slight, nagging and throbbing headache again. Ignis handed the girl a sizeable sum of money and asked for a little bit of everything. The sooner they got to the Leveille the sooner he could lie down and treat his headache.

They still needed to ask for directions to the Maagho anyway.

* * *

The plan was simple enough – perhaps a little too simple for Ignis’ tastes. But he played along. It was what Noctis had gotten out of the agreement to be allowed to be tested by Leviathan, and sooner rather than later the entire city turned into a hellish war zone. Airships had fallen in by the time Leviathan rose from her slumber to converse with Lunafreya at the shrine. Noctis would be on his way to meet with her and to bargain with the sea goddess.

Naturally it all fell apart once they sent Prompto to help Noctis close the gap. They lost contact with each other – Gladiolus was off somewhere protecting people, Prompto had landed safely somewhere else but was effectively stranded.

Ignis himself was standing on his own and watched an airship all but crash into the row of houses next to him. The surge of the water got stronger – what was Noctis _doing_ down there – and he caught the quick glint of a warp. Another airship was being flung around by the tide, and Ignis adjusted his glasses. Out of the one that had crashed into the houses came MTs and a handful dazed soldiers; it was simple enough. He could focus on a fight when necessary, and he tried to not think about how worried he actually was. Gladiolus could stand his own in a fight, he had proven as much when he defeated the Blademaster. Prompto was skittish enough to pass as confused civilian who could also use that to his advantage these days after some teaching sessions. Noctis… Noctis.

He threw a glance at the sea goddess. She looked enraged from his point rather far away – if Noctis was attacking her he barely saw anything. Not even a blink or a warp. He must’ve been hanging from one of the buildings that had been carried off by the tide.

A sigh escaped Ignis as he drew his daggers and tossed them at the MTs. The human soldiers were still dazed enough to not understand why the MTs suddenly collapsed.

If nothing else, being part of the Crownsguard made weapon retrieval very easy. He could just resummon them into his hands after they hit their target, and Ignis was known for being almost as accurate as Prompto. Prompto had simply turned out to be a natural with a gun – it made sense somehow, his father had been a hunter that had primarily used guns after all.

Toss, resummon, toss. Until the post-crash daze settled most of the MTs had been taken out by Ignis simply sitting on a higher level than the crashed airship. When there were finally any orders, it was too late for them to do any damage. More airships went down all around him, but most of them were carried off by yet another wave breaking out of the water and splashing towards the shrine and Leviathan herself.

Another ended up on the other side of what used to be a canal once. Ignis was rather certain he’d spent just the day yesterday sitting on a gondola going through that particular canal with a splitting headache while he listened to Gladiolus once more talking about the Tempering Grounds to Prompto. Noctis had naturally nodded off on the gondola.

There weren’t even people on that airship other than the pilot. Just MTs, stuck in the flattened contraption. The pilot was dead before they had hit the ground – there must have been debris that had his this unfortunate pilot. Even though Niff drop ships like that were known for being sturdy as hell itself, they all folded in front of the Hydraean and her wrath.

In the distance there was a feeble line of light, going from a building that had been torn off by the torrent. It connected with the raging goddess, but there was a telltale sputter of light falling off. Noctis regained himself while falling and warped away once more, and Ignis let out a sigh of relief. The MTs on the other side were still stuck and there was no sign of them being able to leave, and thus Ignis turned around. There were his companions still somewhere in the city, possibly fighting fallen ship survivors as well.

Another one of these airships went over his head. Unlike the nondescript drop ships this one looked familiar. Once more his headache came back as he watched the Chancellor’s airship slowly approach… the Hydraean.

Ignis nearly dropped his daggers and broke into a sprint.

* * *

“I don’t need your damn _pity_ , Gladio! Neither yours, Prompto! I’m alive, which can’t be said of Lady Lunafreya!”

“...”

“Just… just leave me alone. Please. Just for a while.”

“… Gladio, c’mon, let’s… let’s give him some space. We can still s-- check if Noct’s condition changed.”

* * *

“ _It’d be so much easier if they stopped controlling everything she did and just let her have a phone.”_

_Ignis almost snorted at the teenager sprawled on the couch in his apartment._

“ _And there you have your reasons for why they do not permit Lady Lunafreya a commodity like a phone. She is under their strict control, after all.”_

“ _Bah.”_

_He knew when the prince was sulking, and he knew when to not interrupt that. He’d grown up together with him, after all, and thus all Ignis did was chuckle lightly as he put everything in the kitchen back into order._

“ _Worry not, sooner or later she will manage to escape her captors and once she does I can assure you she will seek an opportunity to contact you outside of Umbra. It is but a matter of time at this point. But, seeing as my job here is done, I shall leave you to your own thoughts, Noct. Just remember you have to be up before noon tomorrow so we can pack what you need for the Citadel.”_

_Summer break meant, much as Noctis loathed it at this point, at least a week back in the Citadel. It was supposedly for his own safety, but Ignis knew that King Regis was all but hoping to catch his son during that time and speak to him like they usually did. There never was really anything of interest shared there, but he knew that both king and prince quite enjoyed these simple talks._

“ _Do I have to?”_

“ _Absolutely. If you are not up by then I--”_

“ _Not the bucket, anything but the bucket Iggy, I beg you!”_

“ _If you are not up by 11:30, you’ll get the bucket. Perhaps I should purchase extra ice for it this time.”_

“ _Iggy!”_

_The prince had jumped to his feet and looked as if Ignis had just released a rabid rodent in his apartment. Ignis merely said that the bucket was what Noct was going to get if he weren’t up on time the next day and left._

_Unsurprisingly, the prince was still dead asleep the next day. Ignis, however, didn’t do as he had threatened. Instead he shook his friend and charge slightly._

“ _Noct, up and at ‘em. Rise and shine.”_

_A grumble. Not even pulling the blankets off did anything to the unwilling Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum of Lucis, but Ignis had expected just about that. It had always been the same, almost always been like that. Noctis just refused to wake up._

_A few years later he nearly tried it once more. But of course Noctis didn’t rouse. There was nothing in the room but the soft breathing of his best friend who might not wake up to grumble about being awake ever again. And it drove Ignis mad._

* * *

The moment he remembered, he stumbled over yet another elevation. Prompto was by his side nearly immediately as well, and Ignis was rather glad that he couldn’t see right now. All of this, the entire situation, would have driven him to just laugh stupidly at how pathetic it was. Especially since he was rather sure, judging by the way Prompto still acted, that the other didn’t remember.

Cor, as stoic and cold as ever, had not even slipped up once. Just the occasional far-away look on his face during the time in Lucis they spent together. He’d been a member of the Crownsguard first and foremost, technically Ignis’ superior for all his life. That was the man who had just been about ten or eleven when Aranea had joined them at the campfire, years before Ignis had been born again after being sent to sleep by Carbuncle. He’d managed to uphold the facade and let nothing out, even after essentially watching his partners grow into the young men they were.

Aranea made more sense in hindsight. Why she had bowed her head to Ardyn despite the fact that the Chancellor had no power whatsoever over the men and women of the Niff army. The only things that obeyed his commands were MTs – but Aranea begrudgingly taking them along on her hunt for specimens in a place where they could obtain mythril… The way she’d looked at the three of them on occasion down there suddenly made so much sense Ignis could have laughed when Prompto helped him back to his feet.

“Here.”

It was just a hand on his arm, the most fleeting of touches, but Ignis nearly broke into tears.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

They thought they were being discreet, but the tension hung so thick in the air when they settled for a while at the haven in here that Ignis nearly burst into tears again. Noctis and Prompto were silent for a good, long while. Gladiolus had taken his chair and moved somewhere else in a huff – Ignis had clearly heard that and it had taken a fair share of energy to not snap at all three of them. Noctis was plain exhausted, Gladiolus’ temper tantrum made sense somewhat, and Prompto was just mentally drained. Ignis was trembling that night, unable to sleep.

He heard them, he heard them so very clearly. But he couldn’t see them, even though he knew that if he moved slightly to the left there would be either Noctis or Prompto. The tent was to his right side. Outside, beyond the haven, there were Daemons scuttling about in the endless drizzle. He heard their chattering and screeching in the distance, along with a sound that he couldn’t quite sort. It didn’t sound like it was something the Daemons did. But he came up with nothing that would fit that kind of sound outside of some more Daemon subspecies that were native to Accordo. Something… slimy. Moving.

Eventually he sat up in the middle of the night.

That wasn’t a noise Daemons made, but it was nothing he immediately recognised, and that unsettled him. He took a deep breath and focused.

He’d heard it before. Some time ago. No, not some time ago. A long time ago. A memory of a life long past, perhaps the one before the one where he was called Alacris. He’d lived in Duscae then. Marshes, there was something about marshes. It made sense, given that there was perpetual drizzle here. The entire vegetation was similar to what was seen around the wetlands in the past – perhaps some of the plants that had been recorded as long gone from Lucis were here.

The entire place was Daemon-infested. Which meant that either this was a Daemon after all, a half-Daemon creature… or something that even these despicable monsters feared, somewhat. Perhaps a predator. He’d spent enough time out in the open then to know the predators that crept around Duscae and therefore most likely in this place. None of them truly made sense; the one thing that Daemons usually feared somehow were gigantic birds of prey.

He remembered himself standing in a marsh, looking for something this traveller had lost there. A search he already called pointless in his mind, because what fell into the marshes was lost forever. There wasn’t even a name that went with himself. Possibly something mundane.

The next thing he remembered was that sound. It was the same sound he heard right now in the distance, an uncomfortable squelching. As if something was… hatching…

Ignis remembered it so vividly now that he forced himself back into his previous sleeping position. That was a Malboro of a sort down there, one with hatchlings that were on the verge of hatching. He’d died in that life because the mother Malboro had dragged him into the mud and water with a tentacle and the hatchlings had piled on him. They weren’t even predators but they reacted strongly when one intruded upon their territory – and Daemons avoided these creatures. They were wildly dangerous, after all.

He said nothing the next day, not even when he smelled the strong odour of these creatures as they closed in on the tomb. He needed to think of a way to handle this thing, because that was going to be a losing fight if they fought as they were. The hatchlings could be taken down with weapons easily enough, but the mother… the mother…

All he could think of was losing his footing in the water. When he actually did so he nearly started screaming, but Prompto was once more at his side quickly enough. Somewhere ahead of them was the mother creature, were Noctis and Gladiolus who were having yet another petty spat over their disagreement. This was more than a losing fight. They were going to go down with a whimper instead of a scream. Ardyn would win without even having to lift a single finger.

“Fall back!”

* * *

Tenebrae was lovely. Or so people always said. All he smelled was fire, all he heard were the tired voices. Aranea had returned together with Noctis and they were discussing the way they would proceed from here together with Biggs and Wedge. After losing Prompto like that hearing a familiar voice was good, even if she didn’t sound like she believed in their mission any longer.

Instead he sat on the bench. Civilians, all of these civilians. There had been casualties, although he sincerely hoped that Prompto had been tossed off the train to suffer another fate rather than death. He would just be waiting for them at the campfire otherwise, somewhere in that sunrise. But for once Ignis hoped there would not be yet another campfire at the end of the line. He wanted it to end. The pointless suffering, the pointless living. Aestus, Alacris, Ignatius… all these people he had been, just born to be snuffed out like yet another flame.

Aranea at the very least sounded confident when she said that she would be taking the civilians to a safe place. She might have no longer believed in her mission, but she certainly still believed that she could make a difference by helping people, even if it happened late. Perhaps that was what she truly learned from… Liliris…

“Gladio.”

“Mhm?”

“Have you heard something from your sister lately?”

The other man grumbled something. “Can’t reach her. She’s supposedly at Caem with the Marshal, but… that was a week ago. They might’ve moved.”

Noctis was talking to Biggs and Wedge now. Nothing but polite small talk, Ignis noted, and he tilted his head a little. Somewhere a girl was crying at the station.

“I see. That’s too bad – if she were in Lestallum I would have pointed Aranea in her direction.”

Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea. He wasn’t even sure if there was some correlation between Iris and what he had heard of Liliris in the past. It was still possible – the dreamers were all out there somewhere if they hadn’t already died. They were all supposed to be supporting Noctis in some way. Gladiolus grumbled something again.

“Dunno if that’d be that good an idea. Iris is headstrong. That dragoon lady herself is probably headstrong too. They might end up killin’ each other.”

“Or they forge an alliance over something they have in common.”

“An alliance of bullheadedness.”

“One you’d fit in perfectly, for certain. Perhaps Aranea is one of your distant relatives.”

“Oh, you’d fit right in as well.”

A breather, perhaps. There was trouble down the road, a lot of trouble. A crystal, a country to retake. A friend to find again.

Ignis was rather certain that Ardyn still had another couple of aces up his sleeve. His past liege was never not prepared for something – just as Noctis was as unprepared as ever as he called for Ignis and Gladiolus to get ready. Still, Ignis decided in that very moment, for the hundredth time in his life thus far, but for the first time since remembering his past…

He’d walk right down to the gates of hell for Noctis.


	20. Prompto - One, Two, Three, Four

He finally understood what had happened when the world shifted. In that split moment he felt like he was hanging in the air and Noctis was vanishing ridiculously quickly – he was standing on top of a moving train after all – he remembered all of a sudden. Bits and pieces.

Sunlight in Insomnia. Campfire crackling underneath a sky full of stars. The rush of pride when he was allowed to follow… Izunia? Noctis? That night in Tenebrae as his entire body revolted. A sunset somewhere in Lucis. Moonlight sparkling on Accordan waters. Lucis, a stranger panting as they moved through the fog. A room on fire.

He barely even felt pain when he woke once again, lying off to the side of the railroad somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He should have broken several bones at the very least, but he felt absolutely nothing and sat up. His head was spinning and he didn’t manage to sit upright for more than ten seconds before he leaned over and nearly threw up. That was at least a concussion, if not a cracked skull or something worse entirely. His right ankle was twisted awkwardly and was slowly starting to throb in dull pain. He tasted blood which nearly made him throw up again, it felt like it was crusted across his entire face. One of his eyes in fact refused to open entirely. His voice failed him, all he got out was a wheeze.

He’d fled through the entire train as an enraged Noctis had all but chased him, and Prompto had never before in his left felt so helpless. He didn’t understand what was happening at all, not the slightest bit. Then the train had come to a stop with a loud bang. People had been screaming all around them, and he’d climbed on top of the train to try taking out the airships that were closing in. Then Ardyn. Just standing there.

Prompto wasn’t a person who pulled weapons on random people, not even on his enemies in case they were unarmed. But this man… Even though he had the upper hand, Ardyn managed to to turn the entire situation around. And as he had fallen, Prompto finally recognised it – the ability to warp reality. A fighting tactic that had been taught in Lucis hundreds of years ago, but that had ceased to be taught at around the time of the eighth in the line of Lucis; that queen had called it something that was no longer necessary and had not taught her son.

That terrified look as the illusion shifted was the telltale sign of Ardyn having outsmarted Noctis and Prompto having played right into that plot.

He tried standing up. His entire body screeched in protest, especially the ankle, but he had to get up. Get moving.

His phone had been shattered when he’d hit the ground and passed out from shock. The broken bits and pieces had scattered when he’d sat up. There went the most logical way of letting Noctis know he was okay, circumstances permitting. The train had not stopped, would most likely not stop until Tenebrae. Prompto wouldn’t be able to walk miles upon miles with a broken ankle, and without a phone he had no means of contacting his friends or a Chocobo porter. He wasn’t even sure if people in this backwater region somewhere on another continent even spoke Eosian.

He was stranded. Again.

Perhaps he could drag himself somewhere on his knees. But that would simply tear his clothes more than they already were, and he already looked pathetic enough to begin with.

Stranded. Completely and utterly stranded.

Prompto had to pretend to be surprised that once the sun set, he heard steps. Of course the Chancellor of Niflheim would go pick up a wounded supporter of the Lucian King of the Lucis Caelum line. He had a bone to pick with these people, he had a bone to pick with their supporters.

“Come to… pick up the collateral damage, Your Highness?”

“All it took for you to remember was nearly falling to your death? You really are not the brightest, are you.”

He had always been an outsider, especially for the first few lives. He was the brother’s, the usurper’s retainer. Not the would-be-king’s; he didn’t belong with them. Now he was once more the outsider. The commoner. The one who lived somewhere in another suburb, not in the posh places surrounding the Citadel or the Citadel itself. The good school he’d managed to get to and befriended Noctis in had been a goal of his that he worked hard for – and a hunter’s pay was good, if nothing else. Even if he rarely saw them his parents had managed to set the path to this point in time. The travels with the crown prince. The broken ankle as he could do nothing but sit on his knees and wait for Ardyn Lucis Caelum to casually stroll over and drag him Six-know-where.

He’d closed his eyes and awaited a slap or something. It would have been fitting. Perhaps a snarl, or howling laughter befitting the Daemons that scuttled about somewhere in the dark, most likely awaiting the orders to pounce on the helpless commoner sitting there with his entirely throbbing body.

Instead, all he got was darkness.

* * *

“Oh, what on earth… 6O3, check if that person’s dead.”

Clink, clink. That was the mechanical sound of an MT moving. Finally the dark haze that had held him for a while faded, and gave way to…

Blinding white.

Prompto recoiled on the cold snow when the sensation finally hit him. Lucis was warm. Niflheim was supposed to be warm as well, but ever since they had killed the Glacian the region had turned into a wasteland with naught but snow and empty fields. Most plants had died in the sudden chill following the Glacian’s demise, which in turn had nearly ruined supplies in Niflheim itself. He’d heard about it in Altissia, how most formerly clearly Niff produce was nearly all but gone. Ignis had mentioned it as well as he’d prepared food the night before everything had gone to literal hell.

“Good. Move.”

That voice sounded oddly familiar, and Prompto squirmed on the snow. His leg didn’t hurt, but opening his eyes certainly did. The sunlight had been getting weaker lately, but he had never truly seen the sun on snow. The reflection hurt and he writhed some more until he felt someone grab his shoulders.

“Hey, y-- Oh. _Oh._ ”

He opened one eye a little. It was a face he had seen before but couldn’t exactly attach to someone he knew right now. The blinding white was still intrusive, and Prompto screwed up his face.

“6O3, contact-- No, never mind. Dismissed, return to base. I will handle _this_.”

The sound of a MT retreating was something Prompto was… definitely not used to. The clinking and clanking of the thing vanished after a few minutes and he finally dared opening both his eyes. It was still too white and too bright, but it didn’t burn out his eyes any longer. The person who had grabbed him was…

“Oh, shit.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say? I could execute you here right on the spot for being in cahoots with the Lucian King.”

Loqi Tummelt. Right after the fall of Insomnia they had run into this imperial officer while they had been all but busting open a way to Duscae through an Imperial Blockade. He’d descended upon them in a machine not unlike the ones Cor had helped them bust up before leaving them to their search for the second royal arm with murderous intent. They’d been with the Marshal back then, and the young man had kept his focus mostly on said man. There seemed to have been some shared history, but none of them ever had gotten anything out of Cor regarding that. Loqi looked entirely too young to have truly fought with the Marshal before all that.

“Well, you’re sure not doing it.”

If nothing else, the other man had a mean glare. Prompto had his weapon still with him, so he could defend himself if he needed to. The imperial officer let go of his collar and stared. Prompto himself was starting to shake. It was cold here, way too cold. The movement got yet another scowl out of the imperial, until at last a sigh.

“There’s a settlement nearby. You look half frozen to death as is.”

“You don’t like your opponents frozen?”

A grin.

“No, I just don’t like working overtime.”

That… sounded a suspicious lot like something Aranea would have said.

* * *

As it turned out, everyone was off duty. The ‘nearby settlement’ as Loqi had put it turned out to be nothing but a moderately populated military training base, mostly inhabited by grumbling trainees younger than or around Prompto’s age – and more than a handful MTs. These, on the other hand, did effectively nothing and were all but stuffed into what looked like a misused warehouse. It were about a hundred or so teenagers or young adults living together and making things work out here.

“This… doesn’t look like I imagined an imperial military outpost to look like in… the empire.”

A snort from Loqi who had just finished noting down things he had noticed on his scouting mission. He’d apparently been on what people here simply called ‘a walk’ together with an MT as backup to see if anything changed. The days were even shorter here than they had been in Cartanica from what Prompto had learned, and Daemons alongside the bitter cold made survival for travellers rather hard.

“Did you truly assume it would look like Lucis?”

He was effectively calling him a dumbass, but Prompto took the mug of tea – it was basically warm water with a slightly bitter pang, but everything out here was strictly rationed – and shrugged. “Enlighten me then, officer. I’m just your Lucian captive, aren’t I?”

“I wouldn’t be treating a _captive_ tea.”

“It’s hardly a treat.”

“Perhaps you’re just _spoiled_. It’s supposed to warm you up and not taste like a royal chamberlain’s brew, and judging from the colour that’s returning to your face it’s doing its job.”

The room was brightly lit. The entire closed-off base was brightly lit, with the occasional light flickering. It wasn’t exactly a sanctuary, but apparently it was safe enough for people to stay here. With the lights all but failing, Prompto was surprised there weren’t more people.

“… Thanks.”

His _gracious host_ was perhaps the least friendly person the base, Prompto learned the next day. Most of them were in a lower military position than him, with some others that were a few years older ranking as high as officer just like Loqi himself.

“Tummelt’s really not that bad once you scrape away the icky, nasty surface.” One thing Prompto had noticed around here was that… everyone was blonde, including the foot soldier he was speaking to right now. She at least made an effort to be friendly. “But, much like most of us, harsh home, got into the military early, and then befriended Ulldor. That can’t have been good on him. Heard Commodore Highwind threatened to break both Tummelt’s and Ulldor’s necks after some mishap in Lucis.”

“Some… mishap...”

For just a second he had hoped he could have forgotten about the war. It seemed foolish, considering he was in a military base on enemy ground and far, far away from home. But he remembered Talcott’s crying, Iris’ crying. The glum days in Lestallum after what was supposed to be a triumphant return to the city with yet another weapon reclaimed and added power. The girl tilted her head at him.

“You’re awfully pale. You sure you’re fine? You’re not from this part, I heard, and the winds here are harsher than anywhere else in Niflheim, after all.”

“No, no… I’m fine, I’m fine, thanks.”

She grinned at him and he tried to return the smile. “Anyway, ever since what went down in Altissia we’ve been on standby. They sentenced the High Commander to death but neither executed not appointed a replacement. Most of the army was sent home, and I swear not too long ago I saw three or four airships led by Commodore Highwind’s ship leave from the capital. They’ve not come back either. Something in the capital must’ve gone completely up in flames, I swear! No news, no rations, nothing! Just more snow. And more Daemons.”

The longer she babbled on, the more it sounded like Niflheim was coming apart. Not even at the seams. It sounded like the entire ruling district – Zegnautus Keep as she called it – had fallen into pieces. All they had out here were dwindling rations, a handful MTs, and no method of communication.

What was Ardyn’s reasoning behind dropping Prompto _here_ of all places? There was nothing here.

“So, what should we call you then, handsome?”

He hadn’t even noticed another person joining them, and the guy looked about Prompto’s age. Slightly older perhaps. Built almost the same way as Loqi and Prompto and all the other people in this place were.

“A… Argentum.” Niffs called each other by their station or last name, he remembered. “Argentum, yes.”

“Oh, sounds outlandish.”

There was something seriously wrong in this place, Prompto concluded when he faked a headache to get away from the small group he had managed to draw in after saying his last name. All these people… all of them blonde, nearly the same build.

The same blue eyes he recalled staring at himself from a mirror. They asked if he was good with any weapons. A handful faces that looked eerily alike. All blonde.

They handed him a gun eventually, and he aimed at a far away target.

 _Bang_.

* * *

A week in, and he was nearly going insane. He hadn’t figured out why these people looked so eerily similar to each other and him and it was starting to drive him mad. They weren’t unfriendly by any means; they were just militaries in training that had been suspended from their work without explanation.

Daylight was becoming less and less. Barely three hours of it remained at this point here in Niflheim, and the fact that they were completely cut off from outside communication only made it worse. He longed to hear something about Lucis. Just as much as a comment on Noctis, Ignis and Gladiolus bashing in some MTs head somewhere at the border. He missed them so much it felt like he had lost a limb, and the same faces all around him didn’t make it easier the slightest.

Eventually his gracious host, after a day of disappearance, returned. He was frowning once more when he saw Prompto hanging his head over his camera. He hadn’t taken any photos of the people here – he had been pleasantly surprised to see it still in one piece somewhere amongst his belongings. But all these photos hurt more than he wanted to admit.

Ignis shoving Noctis away from unfinished dinner. Gladiolus snoring on a hotel bed with a magazine on his shoulder. The four of them on rental Chocobos, somewhere in what looked like Cleigne. Fishing, more camping. A shot of Noctis and Iris hanging about Old Lestallum as they were on their way to Cape Caem. Ignis sleeping in the Regalia. An unsteady shot where he was running from Gladiolus who had a squiggly line drawn on his face. Umbra.

He hadn’t even noticed, but Prompto had been crying.

“Heard you’ve been trying to at least pretend you can stand the others.”

“… I guess.”

“So, I’m rather sure you’ve noticed by now.”

“Noticed… what?”

Loqi sat down. The other night one of the lights had died outside, and they had realised they had no replacements. They were running out of supplies, and it wasn’t long before some sort of fight would break out. While Prompto had not spoken much with the others, he’d noticed a certain tension along with the strangely similar faces.

“They all look the same. _We_ all look the same.”

“… I have.”

He was alone on an imperial base in Niflheim, together with an officer in the Niff army. While officer was not a high rank, it was one that had to be earned, and Loqi Tummelt was known for being both reckless but excellent at tactics, mostly thanks to having trained under Caligo Ulldor. That, and his family’s excellent name had bought him all but an easy entry into the army just as he had desired, and he’d been a natural with it. Prompto had learned all that from the others around here, and while it didn’t change his wary opinion of him it explained the way he acted.

“Now, I’ve been in Niflheim my entire life. I know why that’s the case, and I’ve had my severe breakdown over that in the past, but what I’m curious about is… how do you, Lucian, look like us?”

“… Your… severe breakdown?”

“I’m asking the questions, Argentum.”

Prompto scowled back at him. “You’re not my commanding officer. I’m part of the Lucian King’s personal Crownsguard. That’s a position as high as Aranea Highwind’s, and therefore if anyone should be asking questions, it’s me.”

Silence. The Niff looked stunned for a good few seconds, and Prompto was all but expecting him to draw a weapon.

All Loqi Tummelt did was break into laughter. Honest, earnest laughter, as if Prompto had just told him the funniest joke in all of Niflheim.

“Oh, you’re good!”

He could barely believe he and this man were the same age. It was jarring after Insomnia and then Lucis; even though Noctis had been an oddball sometimes and Prompto knew he himself could be rather eccentric, he had guessed that even in Niflheim the people his age would be the same. He’d never considered that most of them would be enrolled in the military, perhaps high-ranking, perhaps already dead. This was the first time he’d heard one of the people on this base laugh like a normal person their age.

It continued for a few minutes, but eventually Loqi managed to catch himself and cleared his throat.

“Listen, I’m not going to say this twice – this base is doomed, and we’re all laboratory rats waiting for their inevitable demise. Whatever Emperor Aldercapt’s goal with this is, I have no clue. I wasn’t even assigned this spot; I fled my rightful one in the capital. You’re my enemy, by any means, but you don’t have to stay in your sinking ship. Your King Noctis will be on his way to the capital before long – after all the Infernian and the Glacian are dead, and the Draconian is rumoured to be with Lucis’ crystal. Which your king needs back anyway, so the inevitable route is...”

“Gralea. Beyond the mountain range.”

“Precisely. If you can manage getting to the next base in front of that range, I’m quite certain someone can take you to the capital. They’ve got airships there, after all. I’ll be going there, and all I can offer you is a march through a winter wasteland. But, it might be your way to the capital, where you can reunite with your group.”

Prompto blinked several times. That was about the last thing he had expected. “Why are you offering me that kind of help? You could leave me here to die with the… laboratory rats.”

“Come with me and my group, and I might tell you.”

* * *

The group was Loqi, Prompto, two others and the MTs that had been stuffed into the warehouse.

The Niff hadn’t been lying when he had said that there would be nothing but snow and Daemons. Daylight was down to two and a half hours at this point, it was bitterly cold, and as soon as the sun had set they were all but fighting their way through the wastelands of naught but snow and wind. It weren’t even the vicious, dangerous kinds that prowled the Lucian wilderness – it just were goblins and imps, perhaps the odd Tonberry slinking about the dark with a malicious glint in their eyes. But these Daemons were different than the Lucian kind. Stronger, more vicious. More than half the MTs had been all but trashed after a single day of walking, and eventually they were down to Loqi, Prompto, one of the people from the base, and three MTs. The estimated marching time had been a week, and they were only at the 3rd day.

For breaks that took longer than a few minutes at best they built up walls of snow. It helped with the bitter winds that howled across the plains.

The person that had gone with them had actually been the girl that had chatted up Prompto. She looked exhausted and sad while watching the snow fall, but Prompto was more concerned about the MTs. They had been acting strange for the longest part of the day, and seeing that Loqi was the only one that actually bothered with these things and knew how to handle them, he’d all but marched made another protective snow wall to check on the remaining of these things.

“You stay here, I’ll check on Officer Tummelt.”

“You do you, Argentum… I’ll not be moving an inch.”

If nothing else, the officer looked displeased.

“Let me guess – malfunction?” Prompto didn’t even announce himself, and the Niff drew a hand through his hair.

“Malfunction. All of them, every single one of them – busted. It’s a miracle they haven’t gone rogue yet.” Prompto didn’t want to imagine what a malfunctioning MT was like, but the way Loqi had said it sounded less than pleasant. “They’ll do for now, maybe a day or two more, then we need to _deactivate_ them.”

“Did you deactivate the rest of them?”

A long pause, and eventually the Niff officer turned around to look at the Lucian.

“Right. You wouldn’t know.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I said, of course you wouldn’t know. You’re Lucian, despite looking like a Niff. You’re not in the army, and because of your looks I keep forgetting that. I’m not deactivating them like a machine. Living beings have no deactivation button.”

Another pause, but eventually a snort escaped Prompto.

“They’re not living beings. They’re machines – electricity takes care of them.”

“Of course. But they’re based on living beings. They once were living beings.”

“You’re joking.”

That look said everything, and Prompto took a step backwards. He didn’t want to hear about this, he definitely didn’t want to hear about this. He took out his gun after a moment and put it against the snow wall. Pulled the trigger.

 _Bang_.

* * *

“There are, of course, MTs that never make it to production phase. Mostly those whose, ah, _parents_ don’t quite agree with it. It’s _unethical_! You can’t do that to my _child_! As if these things have feelings.”

“...”

“But a MT remains a MT at the base genetic code. If nothing else, they’ll be drawn to the military.”

“...”

“Too bad most of them will look the same. It will be quite easy to see which ones were stage one productions. But, after this disaster we have definitely found a way to do this without… human hosts.”

“… Disgusting.”

“Ah, but without your help we would have never quite gotten so far, Chancellor Izunia.”

“That still does not make it any less disgusting. But, do as you must. It was your trophy wife that escaped with your newborn _experiment_ , not mine.”

“Watch your tongue.”

“Or what, you’ll cut it out? You might find that even without a tongue I can be quite persuasive. Surely you remember what happened last time you attempted… any of that.”

“Clear as day, Chancellor. I would love to see a repeat of that, just to see if it can help with the production and increase effectiveness. Perhaps we might even learn how you manage to keep up your human--”

“Keep your paws _off_ me, Besithia.”

* * *

Six days. On the fifth, just as he had said, Loqi had pulled his gun on the remaining three MTs and pulled the trigger. Three quick shots, and the clinking sounds had vanished. The girl’s teeth were chattering by now despite her thick clothing, and she was muttering something under her breath. If Prompto didn’t know any better, he’d say she was catching a cold or something much, much worse.

Just as they had finished building yet another bunch of snow walls to keep them out of the wind, the girl fell asleep.

“Rositha’s not in a good state, I’m afraid.”

“Rositha?”

“Mara Rositha. Twenty-seventh regiment, foot soldier. Not deployed in actual combat yet, has not taken closing examination. But that’s not what I mean.”

He took her arm and rolled up her sleeve a little. It was too dark to see, but something about her skin looked unnatural, and Prompto swallowed down the immediate flight reflex. If that was the Scourge then he and the Niff were in serious danger. Loqi carefully removed her glove just enough for her wrist to be visible. There were dark marks on it – a tattoo, perhaps?

“What’s that?”

“… Can you do me a favour, Argentum? I’m curious about something. Could you roll up your sleeve and show me your wrist?”

Prompto already knew that a similar tattoo would be there. He’d never really questioned it. His parents had always told him to hide it. Perhaps it was something that covered a nasty burn scar or something, he’d definitely heard of tattoos like these.

“… Figured.” Loqi put Rositha’s glove back on and rolled down her sleeve. “Well, I have bad news, and worse news, Argentum.”

“Can’t be as bad as getting thrown off a moving train.”

“Bad news, then. You’re not Lucian. You’re a Niff like me and Rositha, which definitely explains why you look like us. Worse news… I’m afraid that the three of us are somehow rejects of the MT project. I haven’t yet completely figured out _how_ it works, but apparently it has something to do with genetic engineering, human experimentation, and D--”

“Wait, wait, wait, what the fuck!? Rejects of the _what now_?”

He was rather surprised when Loqi actually sat down.

“Rejects of the MT project. Because the base of every MT is a _human_. Sure, they get pretty much reduced to all but a bunch of cells underneath technology expensive enough to put your pretty Lucian cars to shame and enough Daemons to send the Accursed running for his money… but they started out human. The tattoo means we made it through step one but were pulled out beforehand. At the very least it means I don’t have to accompany you to Zegnautus Keep to open the doors for you – you’ve got your key right there on your wrist. But yes. Effectively we are failed experiments, and I’ve been trying to figure out why exactly it was us and the ones back at the base. We could have all been 6O3, but why weren’t we?” A sigh. “Well, surely enough I learned nothing. I’m returning to the base I was located on beforehand, or follow the Commodore’s example and get out of Niflheim while I still can.”

The cities were ghost towns, Prompto learned. The citizenry all but vanished, often in droves. Entire landscapes had been completely emptied of their human population and left nothing but scattered remains of daily life and nothing but empty clothes. There was something going on in Niflheim that was not normal outside of the already abnormal happenings inside Zegnautus Keep.

“Something’s shady. And it has something to do with your kingdom’s crystal.”

“Well, you stole it.”

“Of course we did. That’s what Emperor Aldercapt and Chancellor Izunia wanted. All that money they spent on chasing gods and technology to take out your Wall, to make your city fall. It’s all been for what, for this entire country to vanish at the height of its power? There’s something definitely fishy going on here, and someone way up high’s pulling the strings.”

A dull thud.

“What was that?”

Rositha rolled and groaned. “Officer, I’m… I feel so… weird...”

The sun was rising for its daily two hours. Slowly but steadily. It definitely showed what had just thudded beyond the snow wall, and Prompto sputtered.

“MTs. Hundreds of them.”

It was just the sunrise, but Prompto saw that there was one person that was not a MT. Of course.

Of course Ardyn would be there. He was on enemy ground, with a sick girl and an enemy officer, and the Chancellor of Niflheim was standing not too far away with an army of MTs ready to take back the captive he’d left off the hook for too long.

“Bad news, and worse news, Tummelt.”

“Out with it, Argentum.”

“We’re outnumbered and outmatched, and the Chancellor’s prancing around with an army of MTs. Most likely not to take any prisoners other than me, because I make good bait.”

“Is that the bad or the worse news?”

“Bad news. Worse news, we’re cut off completely.”

“Fantastic.”

“If I go, perhaps he’ll let you and Rositha get to base.”

“Not worth trying, that guy’s hard to bargain with. It was extremely hard to get him to give me what I eventually attacked you with.”

There was no way out. Prompto grabbed his gun.

“Might as well go down screaming.”

“You’ve got guts. That’s definitely not a Niff thing to do, going against the odds. Can’t say I don’t like it, though – godspeed, Argentum.”

“Likewise, Tummelt.”

* * *

They lost. Spectacularly.

Rositha had not even moved an inch and had been gunned down in the ensuing fight. Prompto had been sandwiched between two MTs that held him up by his arms by now. Hundreds of them had gone down in the crossfire, going as far as shooting each other on accident. Loqi had gone down somewhere nearby, and Prompto was not sure if he was still alive.

A person who was still alive was the man grabbing him by the face.

“Too bad. You could have so easily escaped my watch if you had just taken off instead of staying at the base. Alas, here you are once more. Did you have fun with your peers? Or do you miss the times you spent with your _other peers_ under the _ever watchful_ eye of Carbuncle?”

He said nothing and instead glared at the man. Ardyn was clearly trying to rile him up, and he was succeeding at it.

“Ah, Tummelt and Rositha. The three of you are from the same year, and all three of you were cursed with caring, if not even doting parents. Alas, one ran away, one refused to hand her daughter over, and one went mad with grief at her husband ditching her and clung to the last thing that remained. Truly, Besithia should have planned all of this better, but at the very least he learned from losing two top models and his precious little pet project.”

The MTs dropped him at the wave of an arm. Prompto wheezed on the ground for a few moments, and realised that Ardyn had tossed him his gun.

“You might as well do your new _friend_ the honour of taking him out yourself.”

He considered taking the weapon, shooting Ardyn and running for the hills. But then he remembered that the others were on their way to Gralea – and as much as he hated admitting that to himself, leaving as Ardyn’s prisoner would definitely be easier than trying to break into the capital of Niflheim all by himself. Still, it was harder than he thought it would be to grab his trusty gun and stand up. This would be near impossible, but it was the failure-free option. At the very least no MT made a move, nor did Ardyn really look as he approached the Niff in the snow. Perhaps it was an opening, a chance, but there was no way to verbally communicate what he was thinking of doing. He and Loqi stared at each other for a good minute, with Prompto’s hands starting to tremble.

They’d started trusting each other, despite the fact that they were enemies. An alliance out of necessity was still an alliance, and his trembling hands refused to hold still.

_Bang._

* * *

He barely even felt anything as he heard yet another MT in another cell go down. Sitting in this cell brooding was not going to do him any good, but the one time he’d managed to escape had ended with the worst beating he had taken in his entire life. Rogue MTs prowled the empty halls of Zegnautus Keep, and Daemons followed suit. There were barely any people – the few that remained had locked themselves away into rooms and cells where neither MT nor Daemon would reach them. Apparently Emperor Aldercapt was still around there somewhere, together with what remained of his council and ministers – possibly even Ravus Nox Fleuret. Ardyn certainly never shared any information, and the captives were not chatty at all. They were just Daemons, people half turned into terrible miscreations, and malfunctioning MTs. Prompto was the only living being in the entire wing, the entire block of cells had fallen eerily silent.

Had that been the last MT? Some of them had escaped their cells. A handful of Daemons had spent a day trying to get into his cell and tear him to shreds. They’d scattered when Ardyn arrived to glare at him without even a single word for about an hour, and reappeared when the man had left. After that he hadn’t seen these things again.

Once, just once, Ardyn had brought a man Prompto had never seen before in his life. They had been talking about something, Ardyn had screwed up his face after a few minutes and left, and the man with him.

He figured that that had been his biological father. If nothing else, Ardyn made a clear point of what this was. It was utter torture as Prompto was bombarded with the knowledge of how he had been nothing but an experiment. Just sheer luck and perhaps a little manipulation from Ardyn’s side had ensured that Prompto’s biological mother even made it out of Niflheim alive. A series of coincidences, vaguely influenced by what used to be the brother of his liege.

His body hurt.

Time passed slowly or way too quickly.

Eventually he heard one last human voice, talking about how the sun stayed out. A scream, the crunch of bones. Daemon chattering.

Even the chattering stopped. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been moved to another cell and hoisted onto some contraption that he didn’t want to think about. He was thirsty, extremely thirsty. And hungry. Good grief, just chewing on a Daemon sounded just about mouthwatering right now.

And then, at long last.

“You’ll be pleased to hear that your friends are well on their way. ‘Tis about damn time.”

* * *

He raised his gun again. The man had his back turned to him once more. He had never served him, had never remotely owed him anything.

 _Bang_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SERIES ONESHOT "Fern Frost" LINKS HERE. Same thing as with Ivy, except it's the third in the series.


	21. The Glaive of the Rotten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: nothing too graphic, but. theres some. talk of corpses and tearing into said corpses

“Remind me again… why do you want these?”

“If you can shut your pretty mouth and simply help me, I can pull some strings to get you promoted, Nox Fleuret.”

“Promoted.”

“No need to sound so deadpan, it does not suit you at all. But yes. Promoted.”

“First of all, I am not a Niff citizen.”

“Tenebrae was fully integrated to the empire, unlike Accordo. If you could just move a little to the left, I could use your shoulder as leverage. But yes, technically even I without my influence over the military can put in a good word or three on the position you so aspire.”

“Has the High Commander died recently and I missed the memo? He was well on his way to Insomnia--”

“You took a dirt nap for an entire night, Nox Fleuret. Really, you should be more surprised about the fact that you are alive in a room full of corpses than about the fact that Glauca bit it out there.”

“… Next point, _you have absolutely no say in the matter,_ Chancellor Izunia.”

“Are you daft? Left, left, I said, not right. I did not claim I could appoint you, I was merely _suggesting_ putting in a good few words for you. Perhaps we can even get you a replacement arm.”

“Chancellor Izunia, quite frankly – I cannot go more left, please stop glaring at me, any more left and we’ll both fall – that is the biggest amount of nonsense I have ever heard in my life.”

“Oh, you’ll see. Ha! Got him.”

“Remind me again, Chancellor… _why are we trying to pry a dead Lucian off the wall again?_ ”

“Promotion.”

“He’s dead!”

“Shut up and hold still.”

* * *

Broken ribs, possibly a pierced lung. Seawater in the wounds, seawater in the air. The supposed Chosen could not even move an inch, no matter how much he wanted to. The depths themselves seemed to revolt, seemed to rise against all creation. It was what the goddess had claimed – death and despair were not a deep black, but instead the endless blue, rising to the skies above and shaking the very foundation of Eos.

The Oracle was bleeding on the ground, not moving. Seawater in her mouth, seawater mixing together with her _unfortunately_ not as brightly red blood as one would have expected. A healer of the people suffered their curse, so naturally she would no longer be _fully_ human.

It was a perfect reverse. Instead of fire, water. Instead of a king-to-be led by the gods it was one that was abandoned by them. Instead of retainers that failed to arrive… an Oracle.

“Full retreat. All those who can… full retreat.”

He raised an eyebrow at the intercom. It crackled with static, and he’d watched more than one ship go down. An entire fleet all but wiped out by the strength of the oceans, the rage of the depths – the Oracle on the ground. Yet here her brother was, choked and surprisingly calm despite all that. Still, that was not what the empire had come for, and Ardyn had to play the Chancellor.

He shook his strangely numb arm. Damn that Lunafreya.

“I’m afraid that this will all but add to your long list of failures in recent times, High Commander Fleuret.”

A small pause, then another crackling message. “I know.”

“Still that is--”

A small gasp through the communication device. Ardyn himself nearly started howling in pain as his formerly numb arm felt like it suddenly was pierced with a thousand needles of fire. Somewhere down below, where the Oracle was lying… bright light. Light not unlike daylight itself, warm and glorious and full of promise. A thin whisper went across the raging battlefield, and all sound dimmed. From all over Lucis, even from Cartanica, rose the weapons of yore. Crystalline blue glimmered on the waves, untouched by corruption that would turn it reddish in colour. The sudden surge of energy sent him toppling against the walls of the airship that was returning to the main fleet or what remained of it.

Seawater in his lungs. Fire dancing in his veins. Stars sparkling in his vision. Sparks flashing in the air. For more than two thousand years had he been all but severed from his armoury, its usability decreasing as the powers of Lucis and the crystal itself waned in the wake of dusk. It came back with a crash and a bang, and through his suddenly severely limited vision he saw the formerly fallen Chosen rise into the air. He didn’t even have to look closer to see that the broken ribs had mended, that the pierced lung had knitted itself back together. The power of an Oracle, the power of a healer of the people.

Lunafreya had unleashed it despite her injury.

Ardyn Izunia, gasping for breath while sinking to the floor of the airship he was on as it lined back into the very broken formation, cracked a grin. At least she’d go down with a spectacular show of might and light. It would all fade sooner rather than later anyway – she must know as well as he did that once the surge was over, Noctis would be as powerless as before, and he would not make it out of that battle unscathed.

Leviathan roared. Water splashed.

“Retreat, I said retreat!” They would be losing more ships and MTs; not everything had fallen back into formation for a retreat. Waves crashed against metal. Crystalline weapons crashed against scales and fins. He could almost see the Oracle’s calm smile.

_Damn_ that Lunafreya, damn her to hell and back.

Ardyn had passed out by the time that seas swallowed Noctis and her.

* * *

Burning bodies was a custom all across Eos. Most people had all but forgotten the true reason behind it in the last years, but they still correctly linked it to Daemons. Alas, none of these creatures had a desire for flesh without life – the Scourge went after the living to feed on. But the dead often proved a more than suitable carrier of the disease. And thus, bodies turned. The reason they were burned was to prevent the dead rising as Daemons to torment the living. Naturally, they had all but forgotten that.

The dead bodies of those who were not fortunate enough to succumb to sickness before being killed by a former subordinate or co-worker were often found twitching long before they returned to life. Gralea was a literal ghost town at this point, haunted with the wails of people behind closed doors and the wails of the creatures prowling the street.

“Oh, don’t look at me so. I solemnly swear I have no hands in _this mess_. That was entirely on Emperor Aldercapt himself, and none else. I did try to warn them that this power could very well go beyond their grasp before sharing its secrets, but they definitely did not heed me.”

Ardyn had made certain that none would obstruct Seraphina on her way out, just as he had made sure that Magni’s escape from his post was relatively unseen. More pawns on the field were good news, even if both of them had perished long before they were of any use.

He stepped over the twitching corpse that was seemingly breathing out black mist. It smelled absolutely disgusting as usual, and Ardyn stopped after a few steps.

“Will you stop playing offended, or would you rather I prepare you in a similar fashion for your _precious Noctis?_ ”

A deep, disgusted sigh, a shudder – and finally steps. For someone who had been all but tossed around by rogue MTs and comparatively tame Daemons, Prompto Argentum still managed to keep up rather well. It was to be expected from a would-be-MT, but especially of one that somehow had the Mark of the Dreamer. Ardyn had considered it countless times but usually dismissed it as hogwash. Besithia had more than once wondered aloud if there were any like that out there and they simply hadn’t noticed because they had been pulled out of the project by surprisingly doting parents – or because production had happened so well. Perhaps they’d incubated more than one Dreamer, the man had surmised at some point before leaving Ardyn in peace at long last.

It was hilarious that the one that truly ended up marked was the one that was his biological son.

“But, surely you remember that this happens to unattended bodies.”

“I do. If I may – a question?”

Despite the fact Ardyn himself had tossed him against a wall mere minutes ago, Prompto managed to remain eerily calm.

“Ask away. Perhaps I will humour you.”

“Were the casualties in Insomnia taken care of?”

An almost demonic grin crept on his face. “That did never once fall under my duties. That was supposed to be the High Commander’s. Thus, I cannot answer – I do not know if the streets of Insomnia are merely infested by outside Daemons or its former dead citizens by now.”

He definitely knew that it had not been taken care of. Ardyn had, deliberately and carefully, fed information regarding the Oracle to her brother. Ravus of course had known the price of the covenants, had known what his sister had set out to do once she had gotten her hands on the ring and herself safely out of Insomnia. Tracking the Ring of the Lucii was easy – a beacon of power that went with yet another beacon of power – but Ravus lacked that instinct that came with the Scourge. Sources of power were something Daemons fed on after all, and they especially fed on people who carried hope bright enough to light the night sky. And Lunafreya had the hopes of the people with her, and her own ones shone like a star in the night. Belatedly forwarding her moves made it hard for Ravus to truly take care of the rebuilding effort.

One of the many things that had led to him being sentenced to death. But with Aldercapt so preoccupied with succumbing to the Scourge himself while bemoaning the fact that the crystal and the ring should both have been his…

It had been almost too easy.

“Oh, wait, perhaps I have heard that the _removal_ of _unfortunate victims_ had been delayed time and time again by a brother hunting for his beloved sister.”

Prompto stopped dead.

“So, most likely the streets of Insomnia are teeming with people unfortunate enough to not escape the carnage or being able to barricade themselves in their houses.”

The Crownsguard stopped breathing as he stood there, and Ardyn grimaced in disgust when the blonde turned away to let out a few dry heaves and sobs.

“Really now. Shooting your comrade after learning you are not even a person in the eyes of most of the people you knew your entire life did nothing to you, but this? This causes a reaction, Argentum?”

He’d been expecting Aranea to blow up at him at least thrice before she left. On the day she did, she hadn’t even noticed him. Her longing gaze was fixed on Nox Fleuret who skulked off into the shadows with the former king’s sword at his side as always. He’d expected Cor to toss a sword at him, or pull the emergency gun that he knew the man carried. He had only packed his things, thanked Ardyn for the information and set off towards Caem. Ignis was near untouchable despite his blindness – he was essentially tied to Noctis’ left leg, and not even the loss of eyesight had severed that the slightest. Perhaps dampened the mood and taken most of his fighting skills, but it had not managed to drive him into despair.

He just didn’t understand it. Two thousand years and innumerable failed attempts at doing _something_ , yet not one of these three budged. Ardyn had expected guilt to swallow them up eventually. Neither Cor nor Aranea or Ignis had shown anything but pride and defiance and dedication to whatever their purpose had been in their past lives.

Prompto, on the other hand…

He’d finished retching and stumbled forwards a little. Zegnautus was still a fair way off, and Ardyn had more than enough time to torment him – more than a week until the train steered by Aranea’s comrades with the king on board would arrive.

“Perhaps it is time I find out what my _darling brother_ saw in you. But, my estimation would be...”

Prompto cringed and tried to escape Ardyn’s reach, but it was too late. He had caught his face and gripped it.

“You are naught but a cheap copy. Much like any MT with nearly the same face as yours.”

* * *

If nothing else, the little excursion right after the fall had proven to be enlightening. He’d claimed it had been for the sake of learning how to utilise bodies instead of specifically bred humans for MTs, thus an increase in general productivity and effectiveness. It had been more than enough to sway Aldercapt and Besithia, and had won him enough favour that Aldercapt all but followed his suggestion of making Nox Fleuret the High Commander like an obedient lapdog.

Of course Ardyn had no such intentions. MTs were useful for fighting wars and hardening child soldiers set out on a suicide mission they had no idea about, but that was about it. Everything about them was disgusting, so disgusting that he usually ended up nearly rolling on the floor with barely contained laughter. He let Prompto know as much – that the young man was nothing but a fake, no matter the Mark on his chest. Not even Besithia cutting that one up changed anything about the Lucian as he hung about in his cell like a beaten dog. Just a day after that, Ardyn neutralised Besithia before he realised that this particular reject was his biological son, the supposed perfect testing subject.

What Ardyn himself had, for a lack of better words, _excavated_ from the smouldering ruins of the Citadel had been testing subjects. Most of them had been a resounding… failure.

He had a plan for the husk of the former king. That one was off-limits, and specially protected against outside influences – even against the Scourge. Especially since Altissia and the more than hilarious outcome of the fight against Leviathan, Ardyn’s nearly dormant powers had stirred within him. The last time he had summoned a full Armiger had been that village of half-Daemons where he had all but taken out his former retainers alongside the entire population. Ever since the power that his father had always called _birthright_ refused to answer him. Until Lunafreya’s last stand where she rose the King of Light from nearly fatal wounds to fight once more, at the very least. And thus, with almost malicious glee, he used his other formerly dormant power to hold bodies in stasis.

Perhaps soon he would add Lunafreya to the _collection_ he was preparing for Noctis. Surely enough his father and the man who had died defending his betrothed were enough to fan the flames of hatred that needed to burn brightly when the inevitable day of dawn or eternal dusk came, but perhaps adding that woman would do… a little more.

Any other body from the Citadel was not off limits. And Ardyn had more than once spent wondering how far the power of corruption that followed him went, especially now that it was fuelled by the power of a healer.

The subjects from before Altissia had all been failures, every single one of them. They never woke despite being almost lovingly inflicted with the Scourge, they never did as the bodies in the streets did. Ironically enough, he burned the failures. Mostly because magical residue usually led to things catching on fire, and Ardyn with his pact with the Infernian was especially prone to letting things catch on fire. Perhaps he would catch fire himself, should he lose the day Noctis came before him as true king instead of a boy bent on revenge.

The ones after Altissia… were no such failures. Dangly things, half stuck between looking like corpses and Daemons. They moved jerkily until he refined the process, until he managed to fill them to the brim with Scourge until they were nearly bursting with it, until they no longer moved like bad machines but more like marionettes with their strings half cut. They would put up a fight.

Once Noctis had left the premise, once more following the very straightforward but narrow path upwards, Ardyn had returned to his latest subject.

Ravus Nox Fleuret had never had the intention to survive. He’d voiced interest in the position of High Commander because it had given him a chance to catch his sister and move nearly as freely as one could. As soon as the sentence had been spoken but no successor to the position had been named, the blood of the Oracle fully understood that Emperor Aldercapt was no longer in control. Perhaps he had never been in control, given that Ardyn had manipulated the events from behind the stage the entire time. But alas, even after being offered a way out of Gralea and to safety, Ravus had refused it. The sword he carried had to be returned to its rightful owner, whom he finally saw as such, and leaving the capital when the Lucian King was all but confirmed to come to it for the crystal… He’d been foolish, yes, but the foolish actions he had followed more recently, right down to the almost cocky display of who had won his allegiance in front of the nearly turned Emperor Aldercapt had been within a certain perimeter.

“Oh, you most likely knew it would come to this. Just like your mother and sister before you. Alas, your mother was properly taken care of, and your sister is needed _elsewhere_ , which leaves us here, right now.” Talking to bodies was probably not a good sign, but Ardyn was well beyond the point of caring. He’d spent years with lunatics and centuries on his own with nothing but Daemons and ghosts of his past haunting him. “ _Surely_ you would _love_ to talk to your lovely brother-in-law. Oh, my bad. He is not actually your in-law. The gorgeous bride sacrificed everything including her life and happiness before the wedding. And to think neither you nor I were formally invited to that _grandiose ceremony_ , yet we were there just at the right time.”

He dragged his fingers down Ravus’ cold and rigid face. In-between mocking the prince and making sure his little friends did not arrive sooner than their charge, Ardyn had managed one thing he hadn’t with subjects before.

The Daemon that he had left in his former office had retained a sense of self. Instead of gurgling that sounded nothing like the person, it had a voice, even if twisted beyond measure. A corpse that was turned into something else, but that had retained living memories.

Not unlike a Dreamer, really.

He trailed his fingers down to Ravus’ shoulder.

“Ah, you should have seen your sister. She looked so _defiant_ as she bled. What a _sight_ the Oracle was when she was still breathing. But you never reached your sister, and left her and her betrothed to fight a losing battle. What a bad brother you are; not unlike one I once had, a hundred lifetimes ago. Alas, you never openly burned her at the stake. Just indirectly. Shooed her onwards to a duty you could have taken over, or at least stood by her side for.” He all but ripped off the other half of the prosthetic. The sickening crunch of some of Ravus’ shoulder coming along with it didn’t even irritate Ardyn this time despite the sloppy handling. “ _Not that she ever needed you,_ ha!”

He used the torn-off prosthetic to ram a hole into the body, right about where the completely still heart was. At least with enough force those pesky ribs would break.

“Truly, if you were one of the Lucian line and they buried you in a pristinely white tomb, perhaps some of the offspring you never had would have come to claim your weapon. I do wonder what it would have been. The _Glaive of the Unnecessary_ does sound quite catchy, does it not, Ravus? Oh, I do wish you could actually hear me. The _Glaive of the Well-meaning!_ The _Glaive of the Failure_ , the _Glaive of the Foolish!_ Truly, all of these sound _just right_. Too bad, too bad. It would have been quite funny to fight a Chosen who wielded the _Glaive of the Rotten._ ”

He covered the hole he had formed with his hand after tossing the bloody prosthetic away. At the very least the prosthetic had served its purpose – Ravus had been infected with the Scourge ever since the day he accepted the remodelled and reskinned arm of Gilgamesh as gift for his appointment to High Commander. It made this whole process a lot easier.

“Now then, Rotten Ravus… rise again. There is an in-law you have to meet, perhaps the skill of a Shield to crack. _If_ a skull that thick can even crack to begin with.”

At least an infuriated Daemon that had once been the High Commander would all but perfectly chase him as he further disfigured it. It would be quite the gift for the wayward Lucian King and his merry little band of blockheads. He felt like a cat, dragging some gored prey to its owner’s doorstep. Perhaps it was something like that, and be broke into a cackle as he watched the Daemon rise, only to gurgle out a loud “ _Ardyn_ …!”

* * *

“Ah, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Your King brings you here? He will not answer you. Though, I do have to admit, your lucky streak is quite impressive.”

“What did you do to Noct!?”

“Nothing. Put the blame on your precious crystal, not the man who could all but watch your lovely liege get swallowed by it.”

Any other person would have had their head roll off cleanly. Gladiolus knew where to strike even while enraged, but Ardyn barely even felt the scratch. Riling up a Daemon and then being too close to the crystal made his entire body tingle strangely. The black puff of smoke that escaped the would-be wound was the telltale sign of ‘any other person would be dead’, a constant reminder of the fact that only the terrified 20-year-old – or whatever age he would be once he escaped his divine captor – could end his life.

“But alas, I fear my job here is done. You have your crystal – Eos has eternal darkness.”

Despite the gunman clearly knowing better, Ardyn heard the fast click of of a trigger being pulled; and then he collapsed to the ground. For but a second nothing but static filled his ears. Then his consciousness shifted back.

“Did you… kill him?” The two of them knew better, but they played the game along for their unknowing friend. What a splendid show of companionship. A testament to their bond, perhaps.

Ardyn reached forward.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen...” A terrified squeak and a confused grunt. The only one who made no sound other than a slow exhale as he stepped aside was Ignis, who could not see what was happening. “I have places to be. Pray take your crystal for all I care, but your king shan’t awake near it. Do as you please.”

He still had a Daemon in his office that needed to be brought back to Lucis. Amongst other things.

Behind him, three royal retainers remained. Confused, angry.

_Alone_.


	22. Cor - Sense of Finality

From the moment he had remembered his past lives, he had known that darkness would fall sooner rather than later. More often than not had he wanted to completely open up to those he was supposed to serve and protect, but he never found an opportunity to. Clarus and Regis never knew the full extend of what was truly going on, right down to the day they died.

Cor had managed his way into Insomnia shortly after Noctis and the others had departed for Altissia. The entire city lay silent and quivering in what was most likely fear. Very few people walked around, and those fewer still that recognised him as member of the Crownsguard had fled from him near immediately, mostly after throwing some sort of insult at his head. He didn’t really mind – they were correct. He’d been uninvolved in the chaos that had made them prisoners in a city cloaked in grief and terror, but he was also not one of the people that spent their time as imperial prisoners of war in a city half broken.

Only one person spoke to him, a teenager sitting on some rubble. He probably had lived in an untouched suburb, one that was intact. He’d looked up at Cor with interest and watched him as he tried to find a way towards the Citadel.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sir.”

He had paused, and the boy had stood up.

“They say it’s teeming with Daemons even during the day. Ever since the Wall’s been gone, the city’s too dangerous to go out at night, but something about the Citadel seems… haunted. The Niffs probably left King Regis and the entire council dead in there, and now they’re haunting the halls alongside the Daemons.”

He could nearly hear the soft threat that Ardyn had left him with as he departed for Cape Caem. The soft threat of something from his past coming to haunt him if he weren’t careful, and Cor had to lean against the rubble for a second. Suddenly it made sense.

“Thank you for the warning. I think I’ll… heed it.”

The boy never arrived in Lestallum. So Cor figured he was still stuck in the capital – or dead.

* * *

When the first Accordans arrived, the entire crew behind making sure Lestallum had enough space for everyone knew they were, as Ignis so aptly put once they went back to the planning board, _fucked_.

“We could build on the cliffs. There’s also enough untouched space around the plant itself that we could possibly build on, if worst came to worst.”

“She’s right, but I don’t like the thought of building on cliffs. It would take too long to either carve enough space out of them or to build secure enough cliff shelters. In the dark this is a rather dangerous task, given that we are all blind in that regard. As for the plant, it might be too dangerous. Just as the capacity for increasing already existing buildings in height has been exhausted. No, I’m quite afraid we will have to retake part of the land. Employ enough hunters to clean the place and protect it while the engineers and electricians lay new lines so the new settlement will have enough space.”

They had just lost Old Lestallum about a week ago, which had been another influx of people fleeing the dark. Lestallum was full to the brim with Lucians, even a good amount of people from Insomnia.

“It would eat tremendous amounts of manpower, but it is our last resort; people will start fighting if there is not enough space. The last thing we need now is a riot due to overpopulation.”

Cor knew Ignis had a point, but he definitely did not like the sound of this project. The outside was dangerous enough as it was, with most hunters tied to making certain that resources did not go to waste out there. They’d accompanied researchers that looked for plants to relocate to Lestallum and to find the elusive ones that had apparently adapted to darkness. They had looked over an old study by one Liliris Grace, with people commenting on how precise it was. The only one who had refused to have anything to do with that had been Aranea, rightfully so, but none of her companions bothered her about it – neither the ones she’d been with for an eternity nor the ones she had been with in this life. She did turn up with a bush of a plant they had discussed just a day later, however, claiming she had recognised it from the discussion they had had the day before.

“I agree, but… do we have enough hunters for that?”

“We will have to have them. Call Meldacio HQ for back-up – we will need it. I shall attend the planners’ meeting to help them a little, I know the lay of the land more than well enough to still be of help.”

Ignis left the room together with most of the board of leaders from all across Lucis. They were, effectively, the new council. And Ignis technically did have one as the king’s advisor, just as Gladiolus had one as the King’s Shield. The only ones who technically had no reason to be here were Cor and Iris; although the latter had a free pass as Amicitia. The Marshal of the Crownsguard of a dead king, however…

Eventually the room was empty safe for Cor, who looked at the map they had unrolled earlier to discuss things.

And Iris.

“Marshal, is there a chance that you… could start teaching me again? I want to help.” Her voice was quiet and she was not even looking at him, most likely expecting to be shot down.

Cor was not one who would start telling her that she would be better off somewhere safe. Gladiolus could be the one to be that kind of clown, but instead he tapped his chin.

“If that is what you want, then we will resume your training courses from where you left off in the Crown City anon. I will just need your help with where you stopped.”

She was staring at the table. “Weapon of choice.”

He stood up and walked towards the door slowly. “I see. Any preferences you had back then?”

“Couldn’t decide.”

He whipped around and attempted to jab her in the neck. Iris, however managed to block his blow for but a second before the sheer force pushed her off the chair.

“Good, at least you’re honest. Very well, tomorrow morning, let’s say… around six.”

“Fine by me.” She didn’t even as much as bat an eyelash, and she actually grinned at him. “Thank you for not clowning about how I should stay somewhere safe, like Gladdy would have.”

“I am not your brother, and your father would have personally used my own shoelaces to strangle me if I tried to push that that nonsense upon you.”

He wasn’t even sure if he meant Clarus or Regis, but she only knew Clarus as her father anyway. Her smile turned into a beam. “Perhaps I’ll do that one day?”

“Please, at the very least make my death honourable and not a death by _shoelaces_ , Amicitia.”

She was perfectly on time the next morning, ready and rearing to go.

There were few people who had even known about Regis or the entire situation that arose rather quickly in the Citadel. The three of them had always been glued together at the hip whenever they had been in the Crown City, and any blind fool on guard would have understood at once that these three had shared more than just beds. And even though their way of handling it had been anything but discreet, somehow most nobles either turned a blind eye on it or never understood.

Cor, on the other hand, saw through that charade at once. Thus he found himself a little more confused than he possibly should have been. What if Iris was more like Clarus and Gladiolus? What if she was more like Regis and Noctis? Either situation was bad – he tried not to think about the dead too much in the wake of darkness. He only found himself sitting on a roof a few hours later, trying hard to not give into the temptation of smoking. Memories were more a burden than anything else.

Pushing a weapon onto her would have been silly, anyway. Swords were what her entire bloodline had always preferred, but there had been notable exceptions all around. As long as he had been alive as Io, Emil had never officially settled on a weapon, and there certainly were no records of one of the Constructor still being around.

“Well, anything strike your fancy?”

Cor himself had chosen his weapon rather foolishly by grabbing the next best thing and furiously deciding that it was about time he learned something completely from scratch and impressed his peers. Iris, on the other hand, had taken about three hours by now and simply stared at the weapons scattered before her. Technically she was an heir to the throne and could have gone get a royal arm they had found in the meanwhile – not that they had – but the less said about her heritage the better. They had more things to worry about rather than children that were never officially acknowledged as having a right to the throne.

“… They all have their pros and cons… It’s hard to decide. How did you ever settle on two like Gladdy, and Ignis and Prompto?”

“Stubbornly and brashly grabbing the next best thing, and then selecting something to take care of its most glaring weakness. Which happened to be a katana and a firearm.”

Iris looked up from her sitting spot on the floor. She’d been there completely still for about half an hour with her legs crossed before she had asked her question. “You just… went and got something? I would have expected you to… think about it long and hard.”

“Most Crownsguard that make it to the official choice do that, but I had no time for that kind of nonsense. Your brother, would you believe that, also spent an eternity staring at weapons rather than choosing something. Granted, his secondary choice would always be a shield, it has been for millennia, but the first weapon? He just couldn’t choose. And no, I know what you’re thinking. You _are_ an Amicitia, but not the one who will be the King’s Shield. And besides, not locking yourself into something might be handy down the road.”

“Is that why Noct and King Regis learned everything despite their first choice being swords?”

“Precisely. The Lucian royalty has one favoured weapon, and the rest is fair game. More often than not these secondary weapons tend to be former ruler’s arms, though.”

“I’m no Lucian royalty though.”

That was what she was incorrect about. “Just take your time. If you can’t decide, we’ll just continue training with all of these interchangeably until you decide on one.”

* * *

Prompto almost looked apologetic. The man by his side looked like nobody Cor recognised immediately, but once he opened his mouth, everyone in the room fell into stunned silence.

“I know none of you wish to harbour the empire. I myself, as citizen of it, would not wish to harbour the empire. But we are out of space to flee. Our fellow Niffs have all fallen victim to the Scourge, have starved to death in their own homes, or have otherwise been… behind barred doors. I cannot excuse, do not wish to excuse, what we have done under Emperor Aldercapt. I do not wish to make undone what has been done, for nothing brings your dead back to life.” The last thing Cor Leonis would have expected that day was Loqi Tummelt, pale and exhausted, dirty and short an eye, standing before them with his head bowed. “But we are out of supplies. Out of anything to keep us alive.”

Prompto cleared his throat a little. “They’re about a hundred, divided onto three airships. About… about thirty of these are… like us.”

The bandage wrapped around his head and covering what looked like a recent wound was already stained bright red. Cor wondered how exactly that man was still standing, and then realised that Loqi did not expect to be left alive. He was bleeding, probably dizzy and on the verge of throwing up, but he refused to even sit down. At least that seemed to cut tension in the room a little.

“If you want me and them gone, I can do that, no problem. But the actual Niffs that fled with us, I beg of you, they have done no wrong. None of them were in the army.”

The last thing anyone in Lucis had expected had been the reveal of what truly was behind the MT project. They had even less so assumed that Prompto Argentum, by then known as one of the most skilled hunters across the land, was one of them, technically. Prompto himself still looked rather embarrassed for a man about to turn 22, and the man the same age next to him simply waited.

It was the first time Cor had actually paid attention to this child that had screamed bloody murder at him more than once in the past. He had let Magni Tummelt go out of disgust for what the man was planning, and someone had fed the apparently specifically biologically enhanced child of his lies about what had truly happened. Not even as much as a glare from the Niff as he sat there awaiting judgement.

“So,” Cor began, folding his hands, “a hundred Niffs. Not more?”

“You have to understand one thing, Marshal Leonis.” Calm, collected, matter-of-factly. That was not the same man who had attempted to kill him and Noctis with a group of MTs and an engine. “Most of Nilfheim’s population was based in Gralea. The city itself was but a ghost town after entire suburbs had vanished – they called it a vanishing sickness at the time, not knowing or not forwarding the fact that they were turning into Daemons. Someone deliberately spread the Scourge and vanquished population numbers, first in the outskirts and other settlements, and then in Gralea itself. We don’t know how many survivors actually are out there. It could be a million. The hundred of us that managed to make it here could very well also be the last survivors of Niflheim. But yes. A hundred, not more. Unless there are survivors and they catch wind of this. Which I cannot vouch for happening or not happening. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Murmuring broke out in the room. None of them were friends of the empire, not even Camelia Claustra. Still, hearing that a former superpower had all but fallen into disarray and destruction was not exactly the best news about two years into eternal darkness.

“We would still have space near Lower Lestallum… just about enough for a hundred people, if we just get the materials for building...”

“I don’t really want to send Aranea, Biggs and Wedge to Tenebrae, Altissia or Gralea when we need them here, though.”

They got to a formal agreement that the Niffs should stay in Lower Lestallum for the time being, if only to make certain they did not get mauled. One person suggested they kick the Niffs out and take their airships, but thankfully Prompto shut that suggestion down immediately with a “That wouldn’t make us better than they have been in the past, idiot!” followed by awkward silence for a moment. Eventually Gladiolus and Iris left the room for a few minutes, and when she returned she said that he and Prompto had gone to help Loqi back to his people, seeing as he was barely able to stand any longer at this point. Cor raised an eyebrow in surprise – he hadn’t thought that Gladiolus would do that, especially after the argument he and Prompto had had just the other day. The makeshift council left after a while once more only leaving him and Iris in the same room.

It had been nearly two years but she had still refused to choose a weapon. She normally carried at least three of them, which had earned her a peculiar nickname after she had gotten cornered by Daemons while searing Old Lestallum once.

She never really opposed the nickname of Iris the Daemon Slayer. She wore it with pride, almost like Gladiolus looked oddly proud whenever people referred to him as Shield Amicitia. Whereas Cor had slowly but steadily come to loathe being referred to as the Immortal.

* * *

“We’re running out of space again, Marshal… we’ll need to… we’ll need to build power lines and reconquer some wilderness if we want to accommodate all these people. Especially with those Niffs Prompto managed to pick up, it’s only a matter of time before there’s… even more of them.”

“… Quite so. But we’re also out of materials.”

“That’s where… you come in. We come in, as hunters.”

“What you’re about to suggest, Iris, has a point. But the Crown City is teeming with Daemons that might just be there to rip our heads off as the person behind all of this waits for Noctis.”

“I’ve already asked Gladdy. He said he’d come with me on a scouting mission to see if there’s anything. If there’s nothing, Biggs and Wedge suggested they comb the Imperial Capital instead, but they would prefer not going there until we checked the more logical source of materials first. So whether you come with me or not, Marshal, I’ll be going to the Crown City. I was merely asking if you would help me.”

“… You’re almost entirely too much like your father for your own good, Iris.”

“You say that like that’s a bad thing, Marshal.”

“If only you knew how bad that was. Fine, I’ll come with you and your brother. Is anyone else coming?”

“No, I thought a small group could move without being spotted better than twenty people fighting amongst themselves.”

“You’ve learned.”

“Hehe. Gladdy said as long as you don’t let me drive, we’ll be okay. Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! 18 was the legal driving age in Insomnia, Ignis got a free pass, and it’s not like going on foot the entire time is recommended or even remotely fun when any step could be your last!”

* * *

Hammerhead lay pretty silent for once. Most of the people had gone out to see if they could save the sinking Galdin Quay, if there were even people still left alive there. The lights had gone out but three days ago according to Cindy, and the last thing they’d heard of the place was that there were still people holed up in the nearby bunker, built in case of an imperial strike. As little of an opinion as Cor had of Dino Ghiranze, he had to admit that using that bunker that most people didn’t even know about and letting the hunters nearby know before rounding up the survivors and going into hiding was clever.

Iris was leaning over the counter.

“Man, you guys really turned this place into a central hub in the last year.”

“’s what we need out here. Wouldn’t want all ya hunters out there all on ya own, y’know.”

Cindy Aurum shoved Iris out of the way gently. The loss of light had changed her, somehow – mostly because she had lost her parents to Daemons years and years ago. There was a new determination in the woman’s eyes as she eyed Gladiolus and Cor before leaning back over to Iris.

“Ya three all that’s goin’? I know the Marshal and you’re good, but that slab o’ meat over there?”

Gladiolus crossed his arms and Iris let out a snort.

“Other than the atrocious haircut I can vouch for my brother, Cin.”

“I know, I know, jus’ kiddin’, Gladiolus.”

Surprisingly enough he only rolled his eyes. “Pffr.”

Hammerhead was considered the last bastion before the hellhole that the Crown City had turned into. Most of the remaining population had fled the place about half a year into darkness, which made Cor wonder if something had chased them out. Most of them had been injured, tired and starved – it made sense, given that food was hard to come by outside of the specifically cultured and bred things in the last centre of population on all of Eos. Just the Insomnians alone had bumped the population around Lestallum up to nearly five million from a million before, and then two million Accordans… They were consistently running out of space.

“So, what brings ya here, again?”

“Got visitors from Niflheim. About a hundred, but we might be expecting more once they catch wind of their countrymen.”

Cindy looked less than pleased, but she knew that they’d have to coddle up in the dark.

“Makes sense. Are ya gonna stack ‘em on Lower Lestallum’s Accordans?”

Iris shook her head. “We haven’t really thought about that yet. It’s just a hundred.”

“Yeah, but there’s bound t’be more than that. Ya can’t jus’ expect ‘em t’be content ‘round Lower with nothin’ but Accordans ‘round. Ya’ll will hav’ta send out the Commodore eventually t’round up more Niffs. Which means...”

Cor sat down on a communicator that was not in use. All these things made it clear that Hammerhead was also turning into a new base, given that Meldacio was far away and on the verge of being lost as well. “Which means we’ll have to expand, somehow. Upper, Lower, Southern and Northern… we might have to go do the cliffs after all. Western Lestallum is all hunters and their families. Which means we’re up to either Lestallum on the Cliff for the inevitable Niffs, or Eastern Lestallum. We’re really running out of options, but before we can plan any of that we need to see if there are materials around.”

Cindy had sat down on the counter and crossed her legs. She wore mostly what hunters did in the dark to protect herself against the cold, and the generally dark colours made her look rather depressing after having known her as a person who only wore bright yellow since it was Hammerhead’s main colour.

“Like, I’m not tryina rag on ya council types. Gladiolus over there’s a meathead, but he’s got the heart in the right place.” A grumble, and Cindy beamed in his general direction before turning back to look at Cor. “I’m jus’ sayin’ ya’ll need to plan this a lil’ better. Heavens know we’re jus’ turtlin’ up till His Majesty’s back, but till then we need t’be prepared to accommodate th’rest of all of Eos. And ya’ll running outta space. The last thing Lestallum needs right now is the three o’ you runnin’ to the Crown City and gettin’ ganked by some Daemon.”

“We aren’t planning on, Cindy. I swear it.”

At the very least she dropped the topic with a sour smile and instead helped them round up some weapons. Cor himself didn’t need anything else, but Gladiolus and Iris both went over what was offered. Hammerhead was a good source of weapons, and Gladiolus rather quickly sound a sword and shield to his tastes.

It was Iris who took her time as usual, and Cor saw that she was talking to the mechanic.

“Yeah, no need to worry. I’ll bring it up once we’re back in Lestallum, one more person there won’t hurt us. And I swear on my good name as Amicitia, we’ll make sure that your grandfather won’t drive us mad enough to kick him out to the Daemons. Pretty sure both Weskham and Ignis can keep that old loon sane enough to not shank us when we’re not watching.”

“Much appreciated, Iris. I’m jus’ worried ‘bout him, bein’ all out here ‘n all. Have ya tried a lance ‘fore?”

He felt like he accidentally intruded upon something. He knew that Cid refused to come to Lestallum like the grouchy old insect that he was and that Cor was turning into slowly but steadily as well, but he had never considered Cindy’s stance on it. She loved her grandfather dearly, and for her he might even go somewhere safer than Hammerhead. And with the lights in Galdin Quay failing, it was only natural that the woman was worried about her last living relative.

Cor leaned against a truck.

“Have tried it before, I didn’t really like it that much. I might just go for that axe and a gun this time around.”

“One axe ‘n one gun, comin’ right up!”

* * *

“You were my teacher before I was admitted to the Crownsguard, weren’t you.”

“That’s not even a question, Cor, but yes. I arrived at the campfire howling at Ignis and Prompto that you were called Cor this time around and confused the hell out of them. Then Carbuncle turned up and said that he’d received orders to send all of us out again, no matter whether we were full groups or not.”

“Mhm.”

“… Say, about that Iris...”

“I’m not sure. She isn’t a person to remain quiet when she knows something, though. So I’m fairly certain that she hasn’t remembered yet in case she is a Dreamer and your friend Liliris.”

“Yeah, no, I get that. I’d just prefer if the name were just a coincidence and she’s honest to Bahamut just Gladiolus’ younger sister. And even if she is Liliris, I’d want her to not remember, get what I mean? I only caused her trouble, she only caused me trouble. Who’s to say we don’t accidentally get each other killed again?”

“You’re saying that as if Animosa wasn’t like that as well. Personally, I’d say wait until she approaches you in case she remembers something. Until then, business as usual.”

“Fair enough… Well, I’ll be off. Got things to do.”

“Take care out there.”

* * *

The streets if Insomnia were desolate and empty.

That alone was enough of a warning sign and Cor would have loved turning around, but they needed to know something. Iris’ steps were fairly confident, and Gladiolus trailed behind her like some sort of hulking bodyguard. Only Cor himself looked around and found it increasingly harder to go on the further they went in.

He had lived in this city for nearly half a century, longer than quite many of his previous lives had even lasted. It had always been his home, but this incarnation of it was his _current_ home. Had been his current life’s home. It should have been filled to the brim with people, with the Wall spanning the sky – or not, preferably. An Insomnia that did not need protection from Daemons and the empire, one that did not have a ring eating all its rulers before they turned even 60. An Insomnia that was free, but with freedom that was not bought with the blood of Noctis. A pipe dream, he realised as he jogged after Iris and Gladiolus, it had been a pipe dream from the very beginning. There was nothing to hope here for other than Noctis defeating Ardyn eventually and bringing back the light to the world, and with the two of them went the actual last confirmed royals in the world.

The Aldercapt and Fleuret families were completely wiped out, and Cor would have rather swallowed a live Daemon than telling Iris and the entire world that the Lucis Caelum line would survive. As far as Eos was concerned, Noctis would be the last on the throne.

A gust howled through the empty street and the three of them stopped.

“This feels wrong.” Cor and Iris nodded in agreement.

He remembered this crossing. It was in a relatively untouched suburb, near the East Gate. The Citadel was looming in the distance, still as towering as always. Cor hoped he imagined the faint glittering – light meant it was inhabited, and nothing sounded more repulsive than Ardyn on that throne right now. Ardyn had laid this entire city to waste and turned it into this gloomy and empty place.

“It’s quiet here. Too quiet.”

Both Amicitias nodded as another gust howled through the streets.

“Keep your guard up.”

It should have, by any means, been teeming with Daemons or MTs ready to rip any intruders to shreds. The only thing that made noise nearby was the wind and the occasional piece of paper being blown along. The crossing especially was eerie to stand in with this choking silence and the three of them remained still for a good minute or so. Iris had her hand on her gun, Gladiolus had all but drawn his sword. Cor, too, was waiting.

Generally when a large, dangerous Daemon stalked its prey, the lesser ones stayed away. MTs were Daemons by any means and had been acting as such ever since the darkness had fallen – and nothing being here meant that ever since they had entered Insomnia they had been stalked by a big fish. Cor was almost considering the biggest fish of them all, but he was rather certain that Ardyn was not even in the city. The Chancellor would have made fun of them the entire way if he were the biggest fish around here, especially since Cor was in that group.

He was almost relieved when he heard glass splintering ahead of them as well as the low gurgle of a Daemon approaching. He saw Gladiolus breathe out slowly and Iris sighing in the same relief – while they might not have expected the Chancellor they might have been expecting a Daemon Behemoth. Those were mercifully enough still rare across the Lucian countryside, but apparently one had all but razed a town in Accordo to the ground with no survivors before Camelia had brought her survivors across the sea.

Cor was expecting a Samurai-type. Judging by the reactions, Gladiolus and Iris had expected something similar.

The Daemon that now approached them, on the other hand, was not… what they expected. It was bipedal but not a Giant-type. It dragged a weapon across the ground, but it was not a katana like the Samurai-types did. The weapon seemed to be more fitting for an Iron Giant type…

‘ _If I were you, Marshal, I would keep my eyes open. You’ve made certain that the body was burned today, but can the same be said of Insomnia? Who knows, perhaps another ghost of your past will come to haunt you.’_

He had been expecting Regis, a fallen king out to terrorise the city he had tried to protect. Perhaps the members of the Crownsguard that had not made it out of Insomnia alive due to trying to keep the borders open long enough for people to flee. Perhaps even members of the Kingsglaive he had known, still there to continue their betrayal even after their deaths.

“N… No...”

Iris herself lost her composure for once. She clung to her brother and watched that _thing_ approach them; her brother himself was starting to tremble.

“That bastard… that fucking bastard, I’ll…”

Bodies were disposed of with fire. Many people had burned the night Insomnia fell, just as Cor had all these years ago.

Nobody had made certain to burn what was left of Clarus Amicitia. The Citadel had been completely wiped out, but the empire had not let anyone go in and retrieve the dead. The eerie warning, delivered with a crooked grin, suddenly made sense.

Whatever had happened, that was clearly a dead body that had been tampered with. According to what Gladiolus had told him after he and the others had returned from Gralea, the same fate had befallen the recently deceased Ravus Nox Fleuret. A body, twisted by some sort of experiment that had turned them into half a conscious thing that looked more monster than the man it had once been. Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto had mentioned it with no small amount of disgust and pity on their faces, but since Cor had spent a fair time with Iris, he’d learned the Shield’s true thoughts on that.

Only his sister was supposed to know that it had freaked him out more than he liked to admit. He’d set out to challenge Gilgamesh based on a humbling defeat by Ravus, and was looking forward to challenging the Oracle’s brother in a fair fight. Perhaps one to the death, it was unavoidable, but a fair fight nonetheless. What Gladiolus had gotten had been terror unleashed, and the twisted creature that had once been Ravus had all but begged to get out out of its misery while cursing Ardyn – therefore it stood to reason to believe that Ardyn had his hands in that.

Cor was half expecting Clarus to say something as Iris and Gladiolus dodged a swing. But nothing happened other than Iris starting to cry.

“Father…!”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“We’ll have to fight if we want to--”

“I know that!” Gladiolus had shoved himself between his father and his sister. “But I swear to Bahamut, _fuck_ , to goddamn _Ifrit_ , I’ll draw a stick figure on the Citadel walls with Ardyn’s _goddamn guts_ for this!”

Reasonable enough, in an unreasonable way. Cor drew his weapon with a confused snort.

* * *

“ _You could’ve died, idiot!”_

“ _Anything for my liege.”_

“ _You’re not doing me any favours dying, Vigilis, good grief! We haven’t even remotely reached Lestallum yet, and you’ve almost died, what, five times? You serve the royal family, so you know that we get a free pass most of the time! But you… you don’t.”_

“ _While you do have a point… I would rather not spend these agonising minutes holding you while waiting to see whether you get a free pass or not.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Please, Lord Ardyn, it is no problem. None at all.”_

“ _Consider this an order: Stop getting yourself nearly killed all the time. Live.”_

* * *

He felt like he had been thrown back in time. Back to before the day he woke up suddenly remembering a hundred lifetimes, back before the burden of the Wall passed on to Regis.

Back to the time after the Tempering Grounds, really. He had to recover from rather severe injuries and re-learn how to fight. As far as he was concerned he had lost the weapon the king had given him, his honour, and his pride. Thus he had subjected himself to basic training, slowly trying to recover and regain his previous form.

Eventually it had been Clarus Amicitia, of all people, who had appeared to put an end to that. Apparently Monica had voiced concerns about Cor’s limp that just refused to go away.

“You’re not supposed to try killing yourself over this. You’re still alive, and that’s what really counts – who cares if you lost.”

They lost Galahd not long after. And once again, they said that the losses were acceptable within reason. An overwhelming amount of civilians survived – they were to be pawns in a war, yes, but they lived. And a good amount of them was permitted beyond the Wall.

When he remembered, a few weeks after Noctis’ birth, he found himself pacing the halls. Unmoving as the tide, Clarus had appeared and asked what was wrong. Cor, for the better part of his life, actually found himself at a loss for words. Eventually he mumbled something about prophecies he had read about, something that was unsettling him about the way it was worded, how he was worried that Regis and Noctis were part of something they had no direct control over.

“Not… fast enough… Gladio...”

Gladiolus’ shield cracked under the sheer force of that swing. Half an hour and all they had managed were bare scratched compared to the blood the three of them had already lost. Neither the Amicitias nor Cor himself found it in themselves to truly put up a fight – Gladiolus was mostly furiously trying to protect his sister and was cursing out Ardyn who was not even here. Cor himself found his mind wandering off into directions he hadn’t considered since the fall of Insomnia, and he hated it. He hated every single bit of this, from the fact that the sun no longer rose to the fact that Ardyn was so far gone that he’d do something like this, to the fact that he was fighting Clarus. Or, rather, what remained of the man.

“Pull back, your shield won’t last you much longer!”

“Doesn’t goddamn matter, I’ve got more!”

“Trying to grab one from your shared Armiger’s going to get you _killed!”_

“Even fucking _Gilgamesh_ didn’t kill me, so sure as hell _this thing_ won’t either!”

A gunshot; Iris who was still ducking behind her brother had attempted to shoot. But she’d missed, and a window a little bit further down the street shattered. “G-Gladio, pull back.” Her voice was shaking and nearly drowned out under yet another heavy swing sending another few shards of the shield flying. “Eek!”

She dove away with her gun still drawn and watched her brother’s shield break. In the same moment as that happened, the Daemon swung its free arm against her brother and sent him flying into a wall.

That definitely was a move Clarus used when he was alive. That had always been a move that Gladiolus had never been that good to defend against, since he used his shield first and foremost to block frontal attacks and was used to having at least Noctis behind him. Noctis, who could warp strike in rapid succession, even if his weren’t exactly the strongest strikes to exist. Adding up to that was nearly a year of travelling with Prompto and Ignis, both of whom were more than fully capable of knocking something back that was shield-locked to Gladiolus.

He groaned as shattered glass rained over him – he was going to be out for a few moments, if not a few minutes. Cor leapt forwards and grabbed Iris by her arm and pulled her up to her feet.

“M-Marshal. I can’t do that. I _can’t do it.”_ Her voice was trembling just as her entire body did. “It’s the sword, I’m trying to see a monster but all I see is my--”

She stopped herself and nearly dropped her gun. The axe Cindy had handed her earlier was still strapped to her back, but it didn’t look like she had any intention of using it.

He’d trained with that man a million times in his life. This life, specifically. The knowledge of that made him shove his way between Iris’ head and the blade. Cor didn’t use shields. Not a single incarnation of him had, not even the original or Io. Most of them had gone down fighting someone or something where a shield would have been necessary or at least useful.

Clarus never had the intention of harming anyone he trained with. This Daemon was out to kill them. Iris shrieked as he shoved her away, and even Gladiolus let out a shout from where he was still trying to drag himself back to his feet.

Something flashed in Iris’ eyes; something other than terror. He realised that he was seeing her realise something, or several things at once.

The Daemon dragged the blade across his back and tossed him aside.

Cor blacked out as that thing approached Iris slowly, as Gladiolus finally jumped to his feet and grabbed his weapon again. Iris herself finally raised the axe.

“Fine. This is it, father, I’ve finally picked my weapon.”

* * *

He awoke again in a daze. It took Cor several minutes to even muster as much as a groan, but once he did the world stopped.

He hadn’t even realised that he had been slung over Gladiolus’ shoulder, and the young man stopped dead. Iris beside him also stopped.

“Good to have you back with us, Marshal.” He sounded relieved, and Cor looked around slightly. They were on their way back to Hammerhead, just on the bridge. Iris and Gladiolus were both drenched in black grime.

He just realised that the shoulder he had been slung over was… sleeveless. In fact, half of Gladiolus’ jacket was gone, leaving just the other side.

“Your…?”

“Had to sacrifice half of it to keep you from bleeding out.”

“Ah.”

They started walking again for a few minutes before Iris cleared her throat. “Assessment complete. As long as we are quick about it we should be able to salvage materials to build something to home the hundred we have, but if any more arrive we ought to look into… less infested places. Perhaps Old Lestallum, definitely Fenestala Manor. We haven’t even considered Niflheim that much yet, but if we go looking for things there we might be able to find more survivors. That would definitely benefit the Niffs, and probably even us.”

Cor didn’t ask what had happened after he had passed out. That cut across Iris’ face told him everything he needed to know.

“… Well done.”

“Don’t go congratulating us quite yet, old man.” Gladiolus put him on the ground, and Cor bit back a yelp of pain. Ahead of them was an Iron Giant lumbering into their direction. Congratulate us when we’re back in Hammerhead and Cindy’s biting our heads off for being so reckless.”

* * *

“Cor?”

“Yes, Monica?”

“Is it really… wise to take off so soon after arriving?”

“Just point the prince into my direction. We need not waste time with this – Niflheim won’t consider him or most of us dead forever.”

“Do you – do you think any of them--”

“No. No, I’m afraid none of them… made it. Clarus at the very least would have seen his own daughter to safety instead of sending her off with servants. He coddles her too much; she’s got serious talent but is plagued by feeling inadequate compared to her brother.”

“Mhm.”

“At least we know the Amicitias are good kids, and Gladiolus won’t leave Prince Noctis’ side. I’ll be off then.”

“I’m supposed to send them to the tomb?”

“To the tomb, yes. Thank you, Monica.”

* * *

Once more he found himself healing slowly. This time it wasn’t because the injury was complicated – he was just getting old, and they were lacking resources for a swift recovery.

Thus, he was on his own when he faced what one could consider his worst nightmare in an empty street of Lestallum. Iris was out helping setting things up with Prompto, Ignis had gone off to check something with Talcott, Monica and Gladiolus were discussing something with the makeshift council of Lestallum since they had a new member and needed to teach Loqi Tummelt how things were handled around here.

“Your Highness.” It was an insult, at best, but all Ardyn did was bow. Not even a word escaped his former liege, and it was quite obvious that he was waiting for a question. “Nice trap. Was that always your plan?”

“Quite frankly, I had hoped the children would be by themselves, but alas, beggars, choosers. They handled themselves quite worthy of people befitting the family of Shields. Too bad you did not see it.”

Cor didn’t even blink at that insult, and instead crossed his arms. “And you did that to them because…?”

A crooked grin. Cor wondered how anyone even let a man like that into Lestallum, but then again most people were usually considered inhabitants of this. And Ardyn certainly managed to lurk about as if he lived in this city, even if nobody had seen him before. He could’ve just been with the Niffs, for all they knew, and the Chancellor’s face had long since been forgotten in the dark.

“A test, perhaps. If Noctis cannot even make it to the city in one piece because his Shield is found lacking, what was the point of any of this? Unlike Vigilis and I years ago, Noctis is no healer. Injury will prove fatal to anyone following him into Insomnia. And that is not even counting the guest who is _burning_ to meet the would-be king.”

There were countless ways to interpret that, and it was quite obvious that the worst of that would be the true one. He crossed his arms and huffed. The back still stung sometimes.

“And your assessment?”

The man closed the distance between them and Cor found himself rather quickly in the hands of the Accursed. He remained unflinching – the last thing he needed right now was his injury ripped open again. One hand was on his back, the other on his face. There wasn’t any pressure; Ardyn was not holding him in an iron grip or any grip at all. Just these strangely warm hands. He twisted himself free, and Ardyn merely laughed.

“The one I found lacking was _you_ , Cor. The tin soldier and the pretty princess passed their tests with flying colours. Or, rather, they passed it with their father’s remains sizzling out of existence.”

He gagged and turned around. “If gloating is all you wanted, go find yourself another victim. I’m through with this, I’m through with it all. And you, especially. You may have been my liege once, but this? This was the final line you crossed. The very final.”

He walked away before the Accursed could say something, and Cor felt strangely relieved once he was out of that street. Perhaps he was all but tossing himself out of the cycle, but he truly had had enough. A hundred lifetimes, and this was what still ended up happening. The very thing they had wished for not to happen. A strange weight lifted off him when he admitted to himself that he had given up – even if it meant he was locking himself out of eternal rest.

But he hadn’t exactly fallen into despair, either. There was just a sense of finality as he admitted that what he wanted had been a pipe dream, forged in the burning room all those years ago.

Later that day someone knocked on his door. He opened it to find Iris standing there, looking kind of embarrassed.

“So, while I was dressing that wound of yours a couple months ago… I saw that thing on your arm.”

He gestured at her to say she was allowed to enter the room, and she near immediately sat down on a chair.

“Like, I dunno how to put it without sounding completely _nuts_ , Marshal, but… Right as you shielded me from that blow, I felt like I...”

“You felt like you remembered something. And that let to a landslide of memories, rushing in all at once and nearly knocking you breathless. Yes, Iris, that is a Mark of the Dreamer, and no, you definitely do not sound _nuts_ to me.”

She looked modestly surprised there.

“So you… know what I’m about to ask?”

“I can figure. Aranea Highwind, am I right? Or should I say Ariadne in your case?”

A laugh. Iris looked as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, not unlike the way he felt. “Yes. I’ve not got much to do with the Commodore, and just walking up to her and asking if she was my friend Ariadne once upon a time sounded… dumb? Excessively dumb. And then I remembered I saw that thing she also had on her arm back then on your shoulder.”

“It’s alright. I’ve got a meeting with her regarding materials from Niflheim and airships tomorrow anyway – you can come along.”

“Six in the morning?”

Cor Leonis smiled for the first time since he admitted that he had effectively wasted a hundred lifetimes chasing a man that refused to be caught. Perhaps just putting him out of the misery by making sure people were still alive by the time Noctis awoke once more was a much better goal than anything else he’d tried to force upon himself.

“Precisely so, Dame Amicitia. Central Lestallum, market.”

“Gotcha!”

* * *

_The city remained as empty as ever, which made the sound even more confusing until finally a voice behind him spoke._

“Son of Lucis.”

“ _Ah. Just one of you.”_

_He turned around to look at the soft glow in the dark. There were more than a few hungry Daemons near this crossing that could have torn that creature into shreds at just as much as the wave of a hand. At the very least this particular Carbuncle had guts; but it had to have them. It had watched over the royal family._

“What was your true purpose behind speaking to the current Cor Vigilis?”

“ _Judging by you sitting here without a care in the world, I reckon I nearly brought him to the verge of giving up?”_

“Yes. But that is so unlike you.”

“ _As if you Astrals, minor or not, have got any damn clue. Of course it’s not like Ardyn the Healer – Ardyn the Healer is dead, after all. All you’ve got left here is Ardyn the Accursed. The sick bastard who fetches dead bodies and turns them into monsters that then fight their children.”_

“Perhaps you pronounce him dead, but we know that something of that Healer yet remains. Enough of it remains that he found purpose again before giving up. Enough that you eased the wound on his back a little.”

“ _Tch. Get out of my skin and instead wake sleeping beauty faster, will you? That might truly end this nonsense and show you that only the Accursed remains.”_

_He watched the Carbuncle vanish in a burst of sparkles._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who even keeps a daemon in their office only to unleash it on a 17yo and a 25yo
> 
> im just gonna lie down over here, seeing as amaranthus all by itself is the first fanfic of mine to break 100k ever; and this entire series too is the first one to break 100k  
> Bye
> 
> "vanitaslaughing thats a muddy puddle you cried into at least thrice today" this is my home now. i swear my younger self is shrieking somewhere in the past because she reached her goal,  
> thank you guys for being with me on that wild ride, and for probably staying with me until it ends in 5 chapters plus/minus what ive planned but not exactly written yet in the series itself


	23. Prompto - Faltering Slumber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this dragged on for longer than i intended,

“ _Why? Why do you refuse me now!?”_

“ _There you have it!”_

“ _Izunia, stop this nonsense!”_

“ _The crystal refuses him; all but confirming my claims! See, it burned him despite his royal blood!”_

“ _Wha-- Let go of me!”_

“ _You see? It burned him. The crystal burns away Daemons, but never humans. While mere mortals that lack divine protection or royal blood cannot touch it without feeling intense pain, they never get physically harmed. Ardyn is of royal blood and supposedly under divine protection – yet he is injured.”_

“… _!”_

“ _Seize him.”_

“ _Hold it! I’m the crown prince! You cannot-- Let go!”_

“ _You may look like my brother, Daemon, but the crystal has unveiled your true disposition. It is as the retainers claimed.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Take him away.”_

* * *

At the very least the barcode meant that they had free reign over Zegnautus Keep. Not that it meant much in the end.

He’d pulled the trigger without thinking too much about it. A hundred lifetimes ago, back when he was just Izunia’s servant, killing Ardyn would have been a sin without redemption; a death sentence that none would have been willing to shoulder and thus left it to the very crystal behind his back to openly reject the crown prince. No, not the crown prince. Technically, since the king was dead and had named Ardyn his successor, Ardyn had been king. Izunia had overthrown his brother and king at the behest of the gods.

“We need to get it out of here.”

They stood in front of the crystal. The light it gave off was eerie despite being Lucis’ biggest treasure. Lucis’ treasure that had effectively eaten up the Lucian king-to-be and left Lucis in the dark. Ignis raised a hand to touch the crystal, but pulled it back with a hiss after a few moment.

“It does not seem like we will be able to move it with our bare hands.”

There was a black splatter on the walkway, and a thin black trail that stopped halfway across. Prompto and Ignis had said nothing but instead turned to inspect the area surrounding the crystal, whereas Gladiolus stared down the walkway.

“What the hell...”

Ignis turned his head.

“The Chancellor?”

“Yeah. Ignoring my attack on him, Prompto nailed him in the back. He _wasn’t breathing._ So… what on Eos…?”

A few heartbeats of silence. Ignis seemed at a loss for words – unsurprising, given that both his lieges were out of his reach right now, in case he ever considered himself still in service to Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Prompto, on the other hand, much like Gladiolus himself, was bound to the other part of the family. Thus, eventually Prompto sighed.

“Maybe something to do with the Scourge. I mean, we didn’t know that people turned into _Daemons_ when they caught it. His blood’s… black. He’s probably a Daemon. And those are… resilient.”

That was the very same reasoning Izunia had used, over 2,000 years ago. Prompto remembered that day, not even forcing himself to forget it would have banished it from his memory. Nothing could have wiped that from his memory, the supposed crown prince on his knees and perfectly black blood running down the other prince’s sword, with the crystal twinkling ominously in the background. The council and all retainers safe for Ardyn’s had been there. They had all been Izunia’s witness to legitimise his claims against Ardyn, and Prompto himself had been tasted with making certain that the other retainers would not manage to whisk away their fallen master. A great many bricks in the foundation that led to this very moment.

They turned to look at the crystal once more, this time all three of them.

Noctis was gone.

“… Say, uhm… Gladio, Ignis… you guys mentioned you had… train drivers? Don’t you think we should go check up on them? I reckon we won’t… be able to move the crystal without help, and I don’t think any of us can fly an airship.”

A mumble from Gladiolus sounded a suspicious lot like ‘maybe you should, though,’ and Prompto realised within one terrifying heartbeat that his excursion in Niflheim would have repercussions.

* * *

“Come again?”

“I was born in Niflheim. Technically I’m a Niff.”

“… Prompto, you’re joking, right?”

“Did you know?”

“What?”

“Did you know I was Niff?”

“… No. No, neither I nor your father knew, I swear.”

“You always told me to make sure to not show that tattoo around--”

“Because you were a child, Prompto! Who knows what it could have been taken for, who knows what--”

“Did the man who found me know? Did he tell Dad before he died?”

“No! No, he wouldn’t have known. None of us did. Never. Not that it would have changed anything – you’re still my son. Maybe not my biological one, but my son.”

* * *

People started treating him differently. It was just the slightest change, but he noticed how people excused themselves quicker than before whenever he was in the room. Members of the Crownsguard started getting weird around him, from watching his every movement to trying to ignore him entirely.

“It’s unnerving.”

“Don’t mind them,” Cor sighed and leaned back in his chair; he was the only one whose actions barely changed after all, “they’re just on edge. King’s gone, crystal’s still stuck in Gralea, eternal darkness – and then comes the revelation that you were supposed to be a MT. They’ll get used to it sooner or later, as long as you yourself get used to it.”

Prompto had to admit that he would never get used to it. A year into darkness, and all he had managed was making himself more and more miserable. Alongside Daemons were countless out-of-control MTs. He’d been curious once, remembered Loqi’s claims that they all looked similar underneath the masks. Thus he’d walked over to one they had just killed and pulled it off.

He was looking into an eerie mirror for more than 5 minutes before descending into a hysteric fit of laughter. There was barely a human face so to speak of left underneath that mask, but enough of it remained to look like the face that he himself looked into every morning

Prompto Argentum was not Lucian. He wasn’t even supposed to be human.

Eventually he started explaining it to himself as payback for having been Izunia’s servant all these years ago. Carbuncle had an odd sense of humour and an even odder sense of punishment for human sins. And Prompto was suffering this now, as servant of the usurper they simply called the Founder – punishment that Prompto Gemmae deserved, but not necessarily Prompto Argentum. He started losing his sense of self as he cut through Daemons and MTs alike, wondering how many of these could have made it out alive if only someone had intervened. How many people were truly victims of Niflheim, which ones were victims of Ardyn’s almost righteous crusade against the gods?

Could any of these just have been him?

He started getting reckless. Those things were not human, he was not supposed to be human either. Prompto found himself more than once standing over a MT as it vanished, strange strangled gurgling sounds and what not, and he wondered if that would happen to him if someone or something struck him down. He withdrew from the other Lucians and watched from afar how they got more relaxed with Ignis, Gladiolus, Iris and Cor being the only exceptions. But those four knew that he needed some space and they had their own issues to work with – Gladiolus was supposed to take his father’s place by now, Ignis was learning everything from scratch with the help of Aranea and Talcott, Iris was trying to find her place in Lucis with the help of Cor, and the Marshal himself remained as much of a mystery as ever.

Nobody really bothered with the existential crisis he was having in the middle of remembering everything he had done in the past.

Thus, during the second year, when he was almost ready to burst into tears and let himself get killed by a MT, some force of nature made certain that he lived. A gunshot rang across the clearing and the leftover MT collapsed. Prompto looked around for this unknown saviour and nearly fell over in surprise as the MT sizzled out of existence.

“You’re alive!”

“You missed me on purpose, have you forgotten that? Did you think I’d stay still even after you and Chancellor Asshole were gone so the Daemons could make a nice meal out of me? Look, I might be reckless but I’m not _completely_ stupid.”

Loqi Tummelt looked, by any means, like what Iris would have called a blunt ‘shit’. He’d lost an eye in the meanwhile and was leaning on his gunblade for support. Nonetheless he tried cracking a grin at Prompto, a move the Crownsguard could appreciate. Two years had passed since the snowy fields and Ardyn ordering the soldier dead, two years since Prompto had silently thanked Shiva that he understood the Lucian’s intentions and had remained quiet and still. Leaning on his blade with that tired grin was more relieving than most other things Prompto had heard or seen recently, even if the Niff looked ready to keel over.

“Which I never had the chance to say thanks for. So, thank you. Thank you.”

Prompto shrugged. “I’m just glad he didn’t notice and you played along. How come you’re here?”

A long pause.

“Come with me, I’ll show you.”

It could have been a trap. Niflheim was anything but welcome in Lucis, and Prompto and Loqi both knew that they were technically still on opposing sides of a war. A war that had technically been ended with the death of King Regis but it wasn’t like Lucis would have bowed its head after that night. And thus, Prompto was well aware he could’ve just been marching into the arms of a group of MTs and Niff soldiers trying to get a hostage to make demands in the dark.

Thus he was rather surprised to see a group of about 100 people and three battered-looking airships. Loqi went to speak to some people that looked like pilots quickly while a woman came over to him to check on the makeshift bandage covering most of his face. A few of the blondes among the group raised their heads.

“Look, it’s Argentum!”

“Oh man, you’re right, he’s still alive!”

Excited chatter broke out amongst them, whereas the Niffs eyed him cautiously. They were enemies on the opposing side’s soil, and while Prompto looked like he could have been one of them, he wore what Lucian hunters normally did. As much as he could have walked into a Niff trap, he realised that he could easily be one of the people to put them all to death for war crimes they might or might not have committed.

“Anyway. That’s why I’m here.” He hadn’t even noticed Loqi walking back to him. “We fled the capital about a week ago.”

“Are those all that… survived?”

“No. There’s plenty of people still in Gralea, but they would rather stay in the homes they knew than go on a wild goose chase that could’ve ended in all of us righteously being executed for war crimes or being accomplices to war crimes.”

Prompto tilted his head a little. “I don’t think they’d--”

“You’re Lucian, don’t forget. Whether you told them about what we were supposed to be or not, you’ve always been Lucian. I, on the other hand…”

A few minutes of silence. It was a miracle that the Daemons hadn’t descended upon them quite yet, Prompto noticed. They were a group of weakened people, all but waiting for their deaths. Eventually Loqi gave them a signal and they retreated tot he airships.

“Which is why I have a question to ask of you. Lestallum should be nearby, right? These civilians have done nothing, and it’s just about sixty of them.”

“You’re asking if we’ve got space for them.”

“Yes. I would like to try appealing to your current leaders – I have no issues with handing over the airships as well as the civilians and being told to bugger off with the other might-have-been MTs from the base. But as part of the army it is my job to see the civilians to safety first and foremost.”

There was a good chance that someone would cry for his death, and Loqi seemed to know that. Prompto, in the midst of his daze, simply nodded.

“Gotcha. I’ll bring you to Lestallum.”

* * *

When Cor, Iris and Gladiolus returned, Prompto noted that they looked like they had seen a ghost. He didn’t pry further, but something about Cor and Iris seemed like it had changed; Gladiolus was obviously seething.

“Get the council in. And bring that damn Niff of yours.”

Not even a hello. Whatever had happened in Insomnia had upset Gladiolus greatly and he stormed off. Iris quietly apologised for her brother while Cor looked vaguely out of it – judging by the smell of blood and anaesthetic he was possibly still in a daze.

For the time being the Niffs were permitted nearby. Some families had taken them in, the rest had managed to land one of the airships close enough to Lestallum that the Daemons stayed away from it for the most part and stayed in it. Prompto himself wandered off and knocked on a familiar door, which was opened a few moments later by his mother. She looked so tired – most people in Lestallum did at this point.

“Prompto?”

“Hi. Wish I could stay some longer just to talk but… it’s urgent. Is Loqi here?”

Sometimes he remembered that his mother was the only living relative he had. And that made him kind of an exception amongst the Crownsguard, being a Niff notwithstanding. Gladiolus had Iris, but that was about it; everyone else had lost their relatives inside the city. And Talcott had lost Jared to the hunt for the crown prince. Quite a few of the younger Crownsguard members were less than happy about the fact that Argentum, the last recruit before the Fall, still had living family.

“I’m here.”

He had narrowly avoided a nasty infection, one that could have easily killed him. The doctors in Lestallum had noted how stupidly lucky Loqi Tummelt had been, to which the Niff had answered with a dry laugh and a claim of his entire life having been nothing but a string of stupidly lucky incidents. After that, Prompto’s mother had volunteered to keep an eye on the Niff, hence the new living arrangements.

“Council’s meeting. Gladio wants you there.”

“Oh. Fantastic.”

It was no secret most of the people here harboured anything but friendship for the Niffs. Aranea, Biggs and Wedge usually stayed amongst their group, and the mercenaries as well as Prompto had been tasked with taking care of the Niffs so none of the Lucians, Tenebraens or Accordans had to bother. Being called in by the council was less than pleasant, and Loqi fully acted as the representative of Niflheim despite several older, more experienced people being in his group.

“Is my head finally due for being taken off? Do you think the afterlife has depth perception?”

He had the decency to wait until they had left the apartment Prompto’s mother lived in, and Prompto shrugged. Gladiolus had sounded particularly riled and angry this time around, for the first time in nearly two years since they had arrived again in Lucis to eternal darkness and no way of moving the crystal. They had to give it up until they managed to help the general populace, and by the time they had managed to find enough free time to get Aranea and her airships on the job, the crystal had vanished.

“Dunno about the depth perception thing, but he did seem pissed… if you see my dad, tell him I said hi.”

“Duly noted, Argent-- I mean, Prompto.”

If nothing else, they were trying. Everyone was wary around the Niffs, but the Niffs themselves were trying their best to not sound like soldiers, up to the point they attempted to drop the last names. As far as Prompto had learned in the last week and during his stay in Niflheim calling people by anything but their titles or last names was considered slightly rude. They would only use first names amongst relatives; otherwise even children called each other by their last names.

“Any idea why you’re being summoned and told to bring me, though?”

“None. They just returned from Insomnia.”

Loqi stopped. The street they were on was the one leading to the power plant and therefore close to where the makeshift council met; the only people on it were members of the Crownsguard. Prompto also stopped and turned around to look at the Niff – his face had gone completely ashen.

“They went into the Crown City?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“…”

“Loqi – what do you know?”

“Not much. I swear, I don’t know much. But I’ve heard that they… never made sure the dead were taken care of and actively released Daemons in the city in the night of the fall. I… I reckon your fellow Crownsguard ran into something left over from then.”

* * *

The council assembled slowly. Prompto noticed how everyone avoided him and the Niff, who was sitting with his eye firmly locked onto the table. When everyone but Ignis was inside the room, Gladiolus was already nailing people with near hateful glares. Eventually Ignis broke the awkward muttering of who would sit next to Loqi by taking the chair and sitting down. He nodded at Prompto – there was no telling if Ignis was happy with this arrangement, but Prompto was grateful nonetheless.

Lucians, Tenebraens, Accordans. One single Niff. Two Niffs, if they counted Prompto, and the thought was terrifying. He was Lucian, he wanted to scream as a woman his age who had been the head mistress of some Accordan island before the eternal night had fallen and who had come with the rest of the ships. He was Lucian, had lived in Insomnia, had screamed into the rainy day the day Insomnia had fallen. Had wept bloody tears in Accordo as the Oracle had perished. Had fought against Niflheim with every fibre of his being, right up to the moment he learned he had been born there much like the Niff beside him. Was the country of birth really that important? Was this blonde hair really the only reason they were casting him aside now, after everything he had done out of nothing but love for his friend and his home country?

He had missed a lot of the conversation thinking about that, and he was snapped back into reality by Gladiolus jumping to his feet and slamming his hands on the table. Everyone cringed – except for Loqi, who slowly raised his head.

“I can assure you, I had no idea.”

“Spare me the bullshit, Niff! You’ve all had your dirty fucking hands in this, and who knows what else runs around in _our city!”_

It was rare to see anything but determination on an Amicitia’s face these days. Prompto knew very well that underneath that mask they both wore, Gladiolus and Iris were falling apart. People were nervously murmuring during the silence as Gladiolus sat down, fury plainly written on his face.

“Well, was that your plan?”

“Beg pardon, Lord Amicitia?”

“ _Was that your fucking plan_ , I asked. Did you lure King Regis into a false sense of security so you’d have him and the council as Daemons for your _perverse nonsense?”_

Awkward silence. Loqi blinked slowly, the colour that had drained from his face previously returning slowly. At this rate he would turn bright red in embarrassment or shame, and Ignis intercepted the show despite not seeing what was going on.

“Gladio, please. He was not that high-ranking, and not even Aranea who was truly knew what was going on in the labs. For better or worse, we can assume that most Niffs were truly not aware of what was going on.”

That evened the tides for a while, as the conversation went to discussing what they needed to accommodate the handful Niffs. Loqi had turned back to staring a hole into the table – much to Prompto’s surprise even Ignis had his face turned on furniture instead of the general direction of the speakers. For just about ten minutes it was fairly civilised, with Iris leading the conversation with confidence that she had lacked before going to Insomnia. If nothing else, that encounter they had had in the city had truly set her mind straight on what she wanted and what she needed to do, and it was rather clear that she understood what was needed of her right now.

Perhaps she had remembered something, if she truly was what Aranea had suspected her to be. He felt like the mark on his chest burned for a split second.

Then, silence. A quiet before the storm. People were leaving, but not Gladiolus. He remained seated, just as Prompto and Loqi did. Ignis, Iris and Cor did as well, but that was of little comfort. Cor had barely contributed to the conversation – he had spent more than half of it asleep in his chair, clearly worn down from injury and the long travel back to Lestallum across Daemon-infested streets. Iris and Ignis were unusually quiet as Gladiolus took a deep breath.

“Spill it.”

“Mhm?”

“Spill everything you truly know, you shameless rat, or I’ll personally pry that second eye out of your skull with my bare hands.”

Ignis stood up at that point. “I’m leaving.” And so he did, with a proud and offended huff into Gladiolus’ general direction.

Loqi, on the other hand, remained perfectly still. He even went as far as folding his hands on the table before looking at the Amicitia. “Feel absolutely free to do so – there is not much I know, as I’ve said before. I was not there for the ‘peace treaty’, I was largely uninvolved with conquest. In case you have forgotten that particular encounter, I spent my fair share of time trying to hunt down your Marshal Leonis over there. With precious little success, as you might have further learned.”

Once more a fist met the unfortunate table that just happened to be the table in this room. Iris and Cor cringed, Prompto nearly jumped out of his chair.

“Fuckhead, I want information!”

“And as I’ve said time and time again in the last week, I’ve got nothing.”

“You’ve got to know _something_ about that bullshit that made me fight _the Daemon that used to be my own father_ in the city! Something! _Anything!_ There’s got to be a reason High Commander Ravus Nox Fleuret and Shield of the King Clarus Amicitia both were turned into these _things!”_

Iris tried to call her brother down. Cor also murmured something into Gladiolus’ general position.

Prompto on the other hand leaned over to Loqi. “If you know something, tell him. He seriously looks like he’s about to tear you in half.”

A long pause.

Then, finally, Loqi stood up.

“There’s nothing I have to hide, Argentum. I’ve spilled my heart, my entire backstory, right down to the pathetic excuse my mother had for raising me to become a spiteful soldier bent on revenge for a man who left her to tend to a newborn son she never even wanted; a newborn son who had been messed with _for the glory of the empire._ If I knew anything about what had transpired in the city, I would have spilled it – but the people who might have known are dead or the Chancellor. And hells know I want nothing to do with that man.”

Gladiolus, predictably enough, grabbed Loqi by his collar and slammed him into the wall.

“I should kill you for that snotty remark.”

“Then fucking _do it already!_ You hate me, hate the people I brought, _rightfully so!”_ Gladiolus had moved his arm across Loqi’s throat and his voice was breaking. “But I’ve had it up to here with the terror games, ‘cause Chancellor Izunia was so good at them _they turned the entire city I grew up in into a fucking ghost town prowling with Daemons!”_

He was wheezing at this point, and Prompto moved forward to tackle Gladiolus. The man actually stumbled, which caught even the blonde off-guard. At least Loqi dropped to the floor and gasped for breath.

“The hell?”

“Drop it, Gladio. He’s not the one who personally killed everyone in the Citadel.” He offered the Niff a hand. “We’re supposed to survive until Noct comes back, not murder people who deserve living just as much as we do – in case you’ve forgotten, the MTs we destroyed were alive as well. Does that make us better than them?”

Silence. It was Iris who kept her brother from decking Prompto in the face and he was fully aware of that.

“Well, doesn’t matter. I’ll stay out of your sight then, Gladio; it’s probably better for all of us. ‘Cause I’m quite certain I’m no longer Lucian in your eyes – in anyone’s eyes. So I might as well stay with _my people.”_

* * *

“You didn’t have to do that. You could’ve just let him kill me--”

“And then what? Put someone else next on his list? Put me next on his list? Ever since I returned and opened up about it before Gladio and Ignis could say anything most of the people I knew for ages and during training as a Crownsguard have treated me like I’m not even a human being any longer. I’m just a Niff in their eyes now, despite not having a clue what it was like in Niflheim before it all fell apart. It’s like the fact that I’m part of the Crownsguard just ceased to exist.”

“Still, you… You could’ve just stayed with your mother in Central Lestallum.”

“No, I don’t want to place that burden on her. I might as well – hey, bring these over there, more to the east! – stay where I belong according to everyone else.”

“What about you, then? Where do you think you belong?”

“...”

“Heh. Thought so. Well, that makes two of us.”

“It’s just… I feel like I’ve been left in the… left in the dark. Amongst other things.”

“Yeah. I feel the same. I thought I’d find something like purpose in helping these people but… nothing.”

“Guess we can only play… the waiting game. Hey! I said more to the east, not the west!”

* * *

He never felt at home there, or anywhere. Five years into darkness, and Prompto Argentum was as lost as he had ever been. The last time he had truly felt like he had a purpose and belonged somewhere was so far in the past that he almost started laughing when he remembered it – Cassius had a purpose all these years ago, and Prompto Gemmae had one way before this nonsense began.

He’d never truly belonged with the other three, and it was mirrored in this life, his supposed last life. Aranea had her purpose and a strong sense of justice and where she belonged, up to the point she was rarely seen and usually in the field to make certain people lived and could continue living. Cor was firmly grounded as Marshal of the Crownsguard, the man people trusted with dangerous jobs and who went scavenging on foot with Iris a lot. And Ignis himself had firmly rooted himself back in place after getting toppled over in Altissia – he went as far as simply calling his blindness a ‘minor inconvenience’ but one he could ‘perfectly work with nowadays’. Only Prompto was the one floating down the stream with his face turned to the starless sky and unable to find anything to drag himself back on land with.

The Niffs were secluded and still a small group – about five hundred at this point. No more; most others were assumed dead. He tried to fit in, but their habits and language when they were not speaking Eosian was strange and bewildering. He wasn’t really a Niff other than he had been born in the country.

But he felt alienated by the Lucians as well. They had finally managed to not treat him differently because of his country of birth, but they were so different than what he was used to.

In the end he realised that he was truly being punished for having been the Founder’s servant.

“Your pronunciation's slightly off. The stress is more on the last vowel, not the first in that word.”

He spoke Old Niff; they spoke Modern Niff. It had gotten him a few confused looks before when he began learning how to speak Modern Niff just because he lived with them nowadays, but they all eventually settled on it simply being some sort of MT-fallout nonsense. Prompto was fully aware that he could speak and read long-dead languages now that his memory had fully come back. Old Sol, Modern Sol, many sub-dialects of Accordan, Tenebraen and Lucian. And Niff. The only thing he truly spoke fluently was Modern Lucian, and semi-fluent Modern Accordan. If nothing else, learning Modern Niff was fun – he knew that Ignis was putting his knowledge to use in trying to uncover how exactly history had been changed together with Talcott, even deciphering writings in therefore undiscovered royal tombs.

He’d asked if they had ever found the Tomb of the Founder. Ignis had turned to look into the darkness on that hunt for materials, and then let out a sigh. No, they hadn’t. They had been looking for it for ages, but had never truly found it. If it had ever existed – which it must have, since they had stumbled over the Builder just the last week, which in turn had led to Cor sinking to his knees in the middle of it – then it was long buried and fallen apart. Prompto assumed that Ardyn had his hands in that, and he couldn’t find it in him to blame the man for being mad enough to destroy his brother’s resting place.

If anything, Izunia did not deserve a resting place. Even led by gods and supposedly being righteous in his actions had not lessened how terrible it had been. Prompto had not lived in the aftermath like Cor and Ignis had; Aranea herself had suffered her death too early in that life to truly see what had become of the place.

He knew for a fact that the weapon Izunia had carried with him was in the Tempering Grounds, resting amongst the others, strangely pristine where others had already rusted away. Meaning that any tomb the man had ever been laid to rest in was long empty.

Days trickled by slowly, terribly slowly; it was simply too dark to tell what time it truly was. At least being a hunter meant he got out of the settlements more often than others, but most civilians were confined to the by now excessively huge Lestallum.

Prompto leaned backwards after the Modern Niff lesson and stretched his arms a little. Even now he could feel it, the faint remainder of Noctis’ power. It meant he was still alive and simply out of their reach – it meant they still had access to summoned weapons. The same could not be said of Cor; he had all but lost his ability to summon and de-summon weapons with Regis’ death, and the Marshal had politely but firmly refused Noctis’ offer when they had met after the Fall.

He started to wonder, not unlike Ignis had in his past lives. Ardyn was still alive, and neither of the three had ever given up their service to him. The one and only time he asked Aranea Highwind about that, she managed to draw an ancient-looking spear out of thin air, and then proceeded to keel over and throw up into a nearby bush, nearly calling off the hunt for a Daemon that had started dragging people who ventured too far out of Lestallum away before killing them.

“It’s unpleasant and ancient; the spear’s completely rusted anyway.” She still de-summoned it despite being weak on her feet and obviously still dizzy from the summoning. “But that should answer your question. Animosa never officially retired from his service, and due to her _untimely demise_ he never got to officially sever that ancient connection. But hells know he hates it as much as I do, and therefore even just attempting it usually ends… well, you’ve seen it.”

Aranea, for all her faults, was one of the few people that still treated him like a human being. She had reacted the strongest out of everyone when he had unveiled the truth behind those eerily similar kids that all ended up joining the army one way or the other – but she had also been the first to seek him out and talk to him about it. She was a Niff, she had no idea, but that wouldn’t change the fact that Prompto Argentum was her ally. The ally who carried his camera around everywhere, who managed to hit most things dead centre even though he was by all means a civilian and not a fully trained Crownsguard. The weirdo who had managed to befriend Noctis Lucis Caelum.

The man who was supposed to play their saviour. The king who would never rule, the one they would remember for saving them instead of his love for fishing, his dislike for vegetables.

Sometimes Prompto found himself staring at the ceiling trying not to cry. He’d seen what history did to people who had an influence on it. Truths were completely twisted according to the winners of battles, the details about the people went missing somewhere down the line. As much as they praised the Founder, not a single person knew how terrible his actions had been. How picky an eater he had been, how he had tried time and time again to get a certain flower to bloom in Insomnia. How many of his past lives were remembered, if they were remembered at all? He’d heard from Aranea that during her time as Fa the region she had lived in before leaving it forever there was a story about a hunter called Aster that was being passed on. People had remembered him, despite him not having an active influence on big events like Aranea herself had during that life. There were no immediate effects, there were often not even lasting effects they had on general life.

Iris had had one. Her sudden knowledge of agriculture in the dark, which was definitely related to the fact she had been Aranea’s friend Liliris once upon a time had caused a sudden influx of plants in Lestallum. Some weren’t even consumable; they just looked nice and bloomed in the dark.

“Look, it might just be a flower and it glows weirdly,” she had said with a smile as he handed him a bouquet, “but at the end of the day, flowers make people happy. Whether they can eat them or not. We aren’t starving here, so maybe just having a nice-looking flower in a vase can brighten up your night.”

She wasn’t incorrect. The flowers helped; Prompto himself had plucked the bouquet apart and handed them out to people in Eastern Lestallum. He hadn’t seen quite a few of these people smile at all thus far, but that day they had beamed at him as they took these flowers.

The Niffs were people. The MTs were people. But still, he didn’t feel at home with them. But he didn’t feel at home with the Lucians either.

He’d never fully felt like he belonged at that campfire.

* * *

“Anything to do?”

“… Actually, there might be. We’re nearing the sixth year and still have no clue where Noctis will awaken, if he has not already.”

“Oh boy, I already don’t like where that conversation is going, Ignis.”

“Me neither; but we have confirmed the crystal is in Insomnia last month.”

“And you never told me!?”

“To be fair, Talcott and I spent our fair time panicking, and Aranea squeezed it out of us when she saw us looking like, and I quote her, ‘a Chocobo had eaten all our cake and then rampaged through our apartment’. She is the only one who knows other than, well, Talcott, I and you.”

“Fair enough. So, what is it that you want me to do?”

“Locate Umbra.”

“Umbra…?”

“As you know, the dog went missing during the aftermath of Altissia, leaving naught but the notebook behind. I assume that Umbra, wherever he might be, knows full well where Noctis will awaken when the time comes – I will be searching for him myself, Iris out in the field and Aranea in Tenebrae have been notified as well, and Gladiolus has already begun his search.”

“I see, I see. So, a dog hunt, basically?”

“Yes. It might be wise to check Galdin Quay; I myself will be heading to Old Lestallum and circle around to Cape Caem where Iris is looking. Gladiolus is checking Wiz’. We do assume Umbra is in or near a settlement where we encountered him as he brought correspondence between Noctis and Lunafreya.”

“Gotcha.”

* * *

Naturally he had not been allowed to go on his own. He had repeatedly reassured everyone that he was perfectly fine on his own, but all of the people had practically begged him to not go all on his lonesome. And thus, once again, he found himself sitting back to back with Loqi Tummelt on a haven in the middle of nowhere, only this time it was not Niflheim but Lucis.

He’d kept it as brief as possible, saying that they needed to find the Oracle’s dog. Mercifully enough Loqi did not ask many questions, especially since he had all but been appointed the official Niflheim representative in the absence of a true leader. Aranea had been offered that but she had absolutely refused it, claiming that she needed to focus on her mercenaries and the hunters under her command first and foremost, and she did not know anything about life in Lestallum since she was out in the field most of the time. Even though most people, including Loqi, had objected, they had been forced to appoint him the stand-in representative for Niflheim as a whole. Some joked about the ‘Grand Emperor Tummelt’, but it mortified the other man as far as Prompto knew.

“Guess I had it coming, I guess,” was all he said eventually and asked them not to call him that.

This time, the third during their search, they had arrived on the haven by the sea, with the ruins of Galdin Quay in perfect sight. It was almost ironic, considering that this had been the first place Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus and him at arrived at without too many complications on their way after getting the Regalia fixed at Hammerhead. It had been full of people back then, a sunset so romantic it almost hurt as they looked around.

“This place must’ve been beautiful back before the darkness.”

They were sitting back to back, their makeshift tent pitched but unused yet. It was hard to tell what time it was in the dark, after all, and neither of them felt like sleeping with the Daemons visibly about.

“It was. It truly, honestly was.”

A long pause, and eventually they both sighed at nearly the same time. Prompto had just remembered that this had also been the place they had first run into Ardyn, one of too many times.

“There’s just one thing I’m wondering – what’s that island over there?”

“Eh? Angelgard? It was… I think it was a prison?”

It had been one, once upon a time. Back when he had been Prompto Gemmae, to be precise. They had stopped using it under the fourth king, effectively emptying it of human presence and calling it off limits then. Royal property, although it was said that Tenebrae had links to it as well, somehow.

“A prison… So, it’s completely free of humans and Daemons?”

“I guess so?”

“… Argentum, I mean, Prompto. Do you know if there are any boats nearby? There’s a fair chance there’s something or someone on it, and it might just be the place we find either your dog or your missing king.”

* * *

Snatching up a boat had not been hard. Finding one that had not been completely eaten up by disuse and rust yet was slightly more challenging – the travel to Angelgard was not as harsh as Prompto had assumed. Daemons did not usually swim; some even straight up dissolved in water. There were mutations that swam, naturally, but they were rather rare around the Lucian shore, mercifully enough. More than one boat of Accordan refugees had been sunken by those water-bound Daemons.

The island was desolate and quiet. It did not look like it had been touched by Daemons despite it having been five years since the last sunrise, give or take a few weeks. Something about this quiet felt unsettling, for in places devoid of Daemons normally lurked surviving animals. But Angelgard lay completely still and perfectly silent.

It felt as if it was sleeping.

“This place is giving me the goosebumps.” He wasn’t even sure why he was whispering. It felt like the natural thing to do.

Way back it had been said that the prison had been built on ruins from an older civilisation than even Solheim; some scholars had called it the home of the people that lived in the Sol district Lucis. Most people however agreed that something about these grounds seemed almost vaguely cursed, hence why they shipped prisoners to it. Prompto was quite certain there were some bones jutting out of the ground, he couldn’t explain these bright things scattered across the island otherwise.

“Yeah, same.”

They hesitated for a good few minutes before finally deciding to move. There was only one thing left on this island worth mentioning, only one building had survived the ages. If something or someone was on here, they would most likely seek shelter from the howling winds there. After a few minutes of walking, Loqi stopped.

“I don’t feel like we’ve stepped on ancient prison ground. You sure this was one? If we’re trespassing on sacred soil, who knows what might happen?”

“Dunno. But then again, the Glacian, the Hydraean and the Infernian are dead. If we trespass on their soil, nothing will happen. The Archaean and the Fulgurian were… occupied with the covenant and bound to it, so they should not appear even if this is a sanctuary dedicated to them.”

“And… the Draconian?”

Lucis’ Astral. Prompto had never really thought about it, given that he had been raised in Insomnia where the royal family was closer than anywhere else in the world, but to others an Astral that aligned themselves with a mortal bloodline must have seemed terrifying to. The Lucis bloodline had always had the support of the Draconian – even Ardyn most likely retained some sort of trace of that blessing. Niflheim may have succeeded in killing the Glacian and the Hydraean, but the fact that not a single person had seen the Draconian in centuries had made the elusive god something of a fairytale. Children all across Eos were taught how terrifyingly strong the Draconian was, how he would smite all who trespassed.

“… No. No, I reckon the Draconian’s power would feel different; if you could feel it at all. Don’t forget, I grew up in Insomnia, a city all but enveloped in the crystal’s...” He paused.

A strange, eerie serenity that seemed to pulse the longer he stood still. Not invasive but alien still. Prompto held his breath. He’d felt that before, in attendance to when the crystal refused its power to Ardyn, thus acting in accordance to what Izunia had claimed. A calm, judging power that awaited orders from someone or something greater than the mortals surrounding it.

He started moving all on his own. It felt too eerily familiar, and it was making his heart race. Before long he had broken into a sprint and barely even heard the confused yell behind him as Loqi started running as well.

The island was desolate as before, a strange pulse breaking through its silence. It was like the drumbeat of a steady march, a march that time forgot but that he still remembered from a hundred lifetimes ago. There was only one building on it, and only one place this strange feeling could have come from.

He skidded to a halt when he saw someone stand on the island. He’d stopped in hallways a hundred times before, just because some duke came waltzing in like they were invited in the first place. The prince they wanted to see was never home, was never around. A game of politics, and most people seemed to know which prince would inherit the throne.

He bowed to the man standing there, almost ironically.

“I had a feeling you would be here.”

“Too bad I am not the man you look for as usual.”

“No, no you are not.”

Ardyn Lucis Caelum shrugged – he even lacked his usual smirk for once. The island’s pulsing beat continued, undisturbed by the voices of mortals trespassing on it. Prompto would have been surprised if he had not been expecting it at this point, but Umbra sat in the entrance to the building that was supposedly empty. The dog did not move at all, sitting perfectly still and watching the Accursed with his intelligent and calm eyes.

“I’m here for the dog. Although I might just not take him if he guards something from you.”

“Harsh words from so pitiful a servant, but very well.” He stepped aside, much to Prompto’s surprise. “You have found the place your king will awaken; and the dog has guarded it. Not that there is anything to guard him from; he cannot be touched much like the crystal his consciousness resides in currently. You’ve done well to find it, servant of--”

He paused when Loqi skidded to a halt next to Prompto and immediately drew a gun.

“So the rat yet lives. Which in turn means you’ve played a trick on me.”

Prompto grinned. “He who never was a direct servant not quite has to act truthfully, was that the ancient law?”

He almost expected the Accursed to lunge forward, but all the man did was roll his eyes and sigh in defeat. Prompto put a hand on Loqi’s gun and shook his head. This was still sacred soil, though not in the way they had expected it to be.

“There’s your mutt. I’ve no time for Niff riff-raff and servants of backstabbing brothers.”

He walked off as if he had nothing in the world to worry about – he didn’t have anything to worry about, after all. Noctis remained asleep. Umbra got up and walked over to Prompto, sitting down in front of him once again and looking up with expectant eyes.

So Noctis would awaken here on Angelgard when the time came. Five years had come and passed since that day but the fact he knew where his friend would awaken lifted a heavy weight off his shoulders. He leaned down to pat the dog and nearly broke into relieved laughter.

“Will you be coming with us, boy, or are you going to continue your silent vigil?” No answer other than a soft whine, but Prompto understood. “Yeah, I get it. I’d stay too, but people back in Lestallum need me. We’ll just need to get a ship over to the dock here so Noct and you can take it to the Lucian main land when he gets up.”

He turned to Loqi.

“We’ll need to find the Commodore for that. And thanks for not shooting. I’ll answer your questions another day, but it is high time we got back to the main land; I don’t have reception out here to tell the others that we found Umbra and the place Noct’ll wake up.”

* * *

“Hey, Ignis. Just one question.”

“Mhm?”

“Well… do you feel at home? Here, in Lestallum? After everything that happened?”

“I suppose I do, somewhat. I’d love to return to Insomnia, though… if only because it was… home. Not just to me right now, but also to Pacis all these years ago.”

“I see.”

“How come? That was an odd question even for you.”

“Huh? Oh yeah. I think I’ve just realised something.”

“Oh?”

“Everyone here thinks I’m a Niff. Everyone in the Niff part of Lestallum thinks I’m Lucian. I just felt lost for ages; actually since all of this began way back in the past. You guys were Ardyn’s retainers and I was Izunia’s; if Izunia were alive he’d consider me Ardyn’s; Ardyn definitely still considers me his brother’s servant. But, y’know. End of the day, I’m me. Who’s me? Well, I guess as much the failed MT as the Crown Citizen. As much Izunia’s servant as the Dreamer alongside Ardyn’s. But, in the end, I suppose I’m Noct’s friend. Your friend. Gladio’s, even if he’s still being a gargantuan asshole to the Niff hunters that offered nothing but their help and expertise with machinery. I think I can finally… live with myself. No more being upset and feeling left out.”

“That does sound like a fine plan indeed.”

“Still, I wanna learn Modern Niff. It’s fun! So, I’ve been thinking, and you should technically know Modern Niff from your time as Aestus?”

“… I suppose I do?”

“Wanna help me learn? I’ll come along to your and Talcott’s study runs, maybe we’ll come across something of interest!”

“… Ahaha. That’s not how I expected you to return to us, but… it fits, somehow. You were always the most optimistic of us all.”

“I mean, we know where Noct’ll wake up. Which means he _will_ wake up. We just have to last long enough for it. And like hell I’m gonna give up so close to the finishing line! Gemmae did when the door closed, but Argentum here sure as hell won’t!”


	24. Aranea - Mistakes aplenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you need a chapter warning for unplanned pregnancy mentioned  
> chapter has unplanned pregnancy
> 
> and child death mentioned.

“Thanks for… helping me.”

“Mhm.”

“There’s really no way I can change your mind about staying here and wait for the Lucian King?”

“None, Aranea.”

“… I feel like we’ve made a mistake. More than one.”

“Too late to change the past. Go ahead and flee this place while you still can; I can think of more than one place that needs something or someone to protect them. An entire horde broke loose from here and headed out into the city, past the mountains.”

“Gotcha, I’ll check on Tenebrae on my way. Just make sure once you pass that sword along you get out as well.”

* * *

She remembered standing in front of the Wall together with the men and women she originally worked with. The way the magic had shimmered softly in the sun, the way the people behind it had reacted just with slight caution but not straight up fear. Now there was no trace of magic, no sunlight, and Aranea stood there entirely on her own. She wasn’t even technically a mercenary any longer either – it was unbecoming to ask for money for tasks that were neither particularly hard nor particularly stressful. The formerly rather expensive Aranea Highwind had started calling herself a hunter instead of a mercenary much like the rest of her group, although they still worked together at times. Missions more often than not saw them scattered to the seven winds, sometimes even entire continents apart. Thus she was used to working on her own for missions.

She wasn’t on a scouting mission, she wasn’t even on a retrieval mission.

Technically she was on no mission at all.

Insomnia was a place she had never once entered. She was a Niff, after all, and a mercenary to boot. Mercenaries were not included in the peace treaty plan, out of fear that some of them would turn coat at the sight of danger to the Oracle. The only theoretical mercenaries they had were the turncoat members of the Kingsglaive, bought with promise of their homes back or a new home entirely. A promise that amounted to nothing in the end. The land they were promised had been ravaged, the city they were supposed to inherit after the king’s passing nothing more than smouldering ruins with the survivors ducking into their save houses. The empire itself promised prosperity under the power of the crystal once they got their hands on the ring and crystal both, safety from the Daemons they had suffered under for so long.

An empire of lies, falling apart once it got its hands on the trinket they so desired but losing another trinket in the process, thus turning it into a wild goose chase.

A wild goose chase orchestrated by Ardyn, and Aranea scowled as she walked around the broken walls.

They had asked her and her people to retrieve the crystal, seeing as Emperor Aldercapt and Ardyn had taken it away with an airship. They had attempted as much, but it had refused to budge. Almost as if something was anchoring it, and when she demanded the three men of the Crownsguard take her inside to check it, she immediately saw why. It was indeed anchored, unmoving. And due to its proximity to the crystal there was no way of getting it away without intense pain – intense pain that none of them were fully willing to go through. Ignis had already suffered enough and they held him back when he offered to remove that security lock. Prompto looked far-off and avoided conversation and then merely shook his head when they asked if he could remove it. Gladiolus growled and attempted it, but had to withdraw after a few minutes.

There were no switches to release the lock – which meant it was remote controlled and someone had taken the remote.

“There’s nothing we can do here, boys.”

They had retreated, with Aranea looking around more often than not. Eventually they had asked what she was looking for, and that was how she had learned what she had suspected the entire time.

Not a single person inside this place had survived after they had left. All vanished, from the Emperor to the most base foot soldier, all turned into Daemons to slaughtered by them. The empire fell silently, not as grandiose as everyone had considered it would go.

Then again, silent and creeping deaths were what much more suited the Ardyn she knew – as healer he could heal injuries and dire sickness that flared up suddenly with ease. But long-suffering people needed more intense treatment, a lot of power he did not have to spend after a certain amount of time travelling the lands. It was a silent, creeping death that had taken his mother and the king; the one thing he feared more than anything else was the same gradual decline until there was nothing left.

It seemed oddly fitting that he would start planting seeds for this in the past, and she nearly slapped herself on the forehead when she realised it.

“Everyone?”

“Down to the very last man – who we assume was Ravus Nox Fleuret.”

She paused in the hallway and tilted her head. Aranea had not expected him to survive, but she had still hoped silently.

“Just too bad there was the Chancellor and the Scourge.”

“Don’t. Please, I understand what you’re implying, Ignis, but… don’t.”

Insomnia was as ominously silent and abandoned as Gralea had been, and Aranea sat down after climbing the wall. She was rather certain that this had been the watchtower her leader had addressed the Crownsguard beyond the Wall all those years ago, back when they had all still been alive. Surprisingly enough there were no Daemons around this patch of Insomnia – she assumed there was still some magical residue in the air that warded off against the smaller, weaker species. Which also meant that the former glorious Crown City of Insomnia was crawling with particularly nasty Daemons ready to rip intruders to shreds. They would have to venture into it and look for survivors before long; abandoning people to the darkness seemed cruel. Even though the people that had in the last three months commandeered what happened in Lestallum had made no mention of Niflheim’s population. It seemed fair; Niflheim had caused and subsequently lost the war. The winners decided history as she knew; it was not unlike Izunia writing Ardyn out of history entirely.

* * *

“You’ve been gone for quite a while, Commodore.”

“Yeah, so what? I’m technically a mercenary, after all. I’m not contractually obliged to do anything; I needed air for a while.”

“Air for a year?”

“Buzz off. You guys have Biggs and Wedge and a handful trained mercenaries also able to fly the airships you snagged from Niflheim. You technically don’t need me, anyway.”

“That’s a lie and you know it. We wouldn’t be here in this time if it weren’t for you; you definitely pulled your weight in more than one life and more than one battle in the past. I simply… worry. You vanished for a year and return, well. Like this. With him. I was merely curious.”

“Found him in Insomnia. Couldn’t exactly leave a newborn out there, right?”

“Oh. Oh, I assumed… since you asked--”

“Don’t go assuming, idiot. Anyway, yeah. I found him. I’m keeping him.”

* * *

She’d made a good amount of mistakes in the past. Fa herself had made several mistakes that led to her eventual demise at the hands of the woman she loved with all her heart; Ariadne as well had made her mistakes that had led to everything crashing and burning around her. Even in her first life after death she had made one fatal mistake that had ended up causing a lot of suffering to people she barely even remembered at this point.

When she first left Lestallum for some peace and quiet she was fully aware of what sort of mistake she’d made this time, and nearly lost her mind as she wandered with nothing but her lance for a good while. Settlements all around the world were falling prey to Daemons and darkness once their energy ran out, and people were migrating to Lestallum all over. But Aranea Highwind was marching around trying to get away from the people she knew for some reflection until her body could not go any longer.

That faint mark on Frey’s ankle was more than enough. She nearly started sobbing in the middle of the group on its way to Lestallum that had taken her in about a week after his birth – just one night and one misstep and she and Ravus had accidentally ensured that the blood of the Oracle would not entirely die out. Not that anyone would ever be allowed to know that, and Aranea returned to Lestallum with a grim expression.

Most people were more curious about the child rather than her disappearance that aligned nearly perfectly with his age; mercifully enough even the more vigilant people like Ignis were easily convinced of the ‘found a bawling orphan, couldn’t leave him out in the open like that’ story. After all, there was no father. Aranea Highwind, stubborn and unmoveable as a rock, hardly seemed like the person to have a one-night-stand and wind up pregnant; on the other hand there were plenty of orphaned children that never found their parents again. She even went as far as humouring the good-hearted search for Frey’s ‘birth parents’ that Iris started when he was about five months old, because there was a chance they had arrived in Lestallum by now. Several children found their parents after arriving, and those who didn’t were often taken in by other families.

Aranea even feigned disappointment when they naturally did not find anyone missing a child fitting Frey’s description. Thus, by the time he turned one, Aranea decided that he was going to be a Highwind – Frey Highwind. It wasn’t like she could go around and tell people that he was a Nox Fleuret as much as he was hers.

If nothing else, it helped her meet people around Lestallum who did not immediately hate her because she was a Niff or a mercenary or both. She had to look for babysitters that would not recognise a Mark of Royalty or a Mark of the Dreamer; those two looked similar enough and as soon as someone recognised that it would be over. Her jig would be up, because if they recognised it as royalty it wasn’t hard to link him to the recently deceased High Commander or worse, the Aldercapt family. And if it was a Mark of the Dreamer…

A cold shudder ran down her spine every time she thought about that. At first she had assumed it was one, which had nearly made her howl in the dark. Then she started seeing the differences, and finally understood what it truly meant.

Every time she went on a hunt or a scavenging mission she left him with someone. Sometimes even Biggs or Wedge when they remained in Lestallum – they had all but parted ways at this point. The mercenary band under Aranea Highwind had unofficially disbanded, for all of them had started helping with Lestallum in similar or different ways. Most of them offered their services completely free and turned into hunters. Some others settled with people despite being Niffs. And at least one she knew had returned to Gralea because they saw no point in helping people who they had been fighting against.

Once she even left Frey with Iris because they needed someone capable of flying an airship and everyone else was busy somehow. She almost dreaded returning to her makeshift apartment because she still believed that Iris was a reborn Liliris who might or might not know what that birthmark meant. All she got was a bright smile and a comment on how well-behaved and cute he was for a child his age. If Iris truly was Liliris she did not remember yet.

As many mistakes as she’d made, this couldn’t have been so bad. The people were pleasant enough.

At least until the Niffs arrived, together with Loqi Tummelt of all people. He was surprisingly calm for someone who often went off in a hissy fit as soon as Cor Leonis was mentioned, and the day after Prompto brought in the Niffs she found herself staring at the lance attached to her wall. It had been 22 years since her teacher went off, 22 years since that particular Niff had been born. She didn’t even remember Magni Tummelt’s face but every time she thought of him all she felt was bitterness. For all his failings in his life, Loqi managed to stay composed and apologetic; he was most likely assuming he would be sentenced to death and rightfully so. They didn’t. They even offered taking in the Niffs.

And all of a sudden, people changed. She’d witnessed it around Prompto when he revealed the barcode tattoo and explained what it meant. She saw it on Loqi Tummelt’s wrist as well that day, and caught the silent glares from several people – but she herself decided not to treat any of them differently. Prompto was a companion with whom she had suffered through a lot, but first and foremost he was a human being. And as far as she was concerned, humans that lived in the eternal dark deserved to be treated like living beings with emotions and opinions.

She even went as far as offering to help with the Niffs alongside Prompto, even though most people said that they needed her on hunting and scouting duty – and that she had her son to keep in mind.

It was as if they were forgetting she herself was a Niff, and technically Frey was as well. But Prompto on the other hand was being treated like he had spent the entire war on the opposing side.

* * *

“Morning, Cor. Iris.”

“Good morning, Aranea. Oh? You brought him?”

“Yeah. Little bugger wouldn’t go back to sleep and didn’t let me go on my own despite me telling him that I’d just be speaking to you and that he definitely didn’t want to hear dry acquisition conversations. Though, I’d have assumed the same would apply to Dame Amicitia there.”

“No, she actually wishes to discuss something with you afterwards, but I figured it might not hurt to have her listen in to learn about it. Especially since her brother is more in the field and effectively leaves her to do all of this as temporary head of the Amicitia family.”

“Fair enough. So, the only thing we could actually really use from Niflheim at the moment, ironically enough? Snow. It’s fresh water, something that we definitely need. And with those maritime Daemons on their way into our lakes and rivers, well. Another thing we can definitely use is more building supplies, but I’m drawing at a blank as to where we might get that from.”

“Fresh water… I actually hadn’t considered that before, but now that you mention it… is there a way to refrigerate it to transport it, or do we have containers we can melt it in?”

“There ought to be something both here and in Niflheim; and the snow won’t even be that hard to get. Daemons be damned, the only thing we might run into trouble with might be the fact that Niflheim’s fucking cold thanks to murdering the Glacian.”

“Yes… Although we could always ask some of the Niffs that are hunters to go along. Those people, you included, are used to the cold after all.”

“Like hell I’ll set a foot in the snow in the week Frey turns two.”

“… Ah, right.”

* * *

The silence in Aranea’s apartment was almost choking. Frey had fallen asleep, and Iris sat on a chair looking kind of uncomfortable.

“So, Cor said you needed to talk to me about something?”

There was that uncertain glance she shot the older woman that made Aranea nervous. Something about Niffs – her brother was still extraordinarily upset and nearly cruel to any of them because of what had happened in Insomnia – and having to move into the Niff settlement that was in construction was one of Aranea’s biggest fears, and Iris was majorly involved in settlement issues.

The Lucian took a deep breath.

“Look, it’ll sound stupid… but you know that funny birthmark Frey has on his ankle?”

She blinked.

Blinked again.

Something inside her head was rattling in alarm.

“I’ve… learned about these, you could say. So I’ll just cut to the chase and ask this… Were you, about three hundred or so years, maybe more, alive? As a woman named Ariadne? If this sounds like total hogwash to you, I can explain it if you’d like, but--”

A moment of relief washed over her; Iris had recognised the Mark but not as Mark of Royalty. On the other hand it meant something equally terrifying, and Aranea interrupted her. “I was. Which makes you Liliris.”

Iris held her breath for a few seconds before exhaling slowly. Then she folded her hands in her lap.

“Aria… Well, Aranea… I… I can’t believe this… I mean, I...” She started trembling on her seat but still had the same expression. “I couldn’t… can’t… Ah, hell...”

The younger was crying by now, and Aranea leaned forwards. She wasn’t quite sure how to react – Ariadne would have definitely gone and embraced Liliris; but Aranea and Iris were companions in a world of eternal darkness, mostly out of necessity. Aranea had been part of the empire that had all but murdered her father and turned him into a Daemon, and Aranea doubly so was part of that since she used to be Ardyn’s servant hundreds of lifetimes ago.

“It’s okay. Everything’s fine; you don’t have to apologise.”

“No! No, it’s not!” Suddenly the 18-year-old was standing, with tears streaming down her face. “I got you killed! I _murdered you,_ even though you had done no wrong and could have explained all of this to me calmly and rationally if I had just _let you!_ ”

Aranea stood up and walked over to the other woman. “Iris. You can’t change your past mistakes. You learn from them.” Putting a hand on the shoulder of a girl she barely knew was somewhat awkward, but Ariadne and Liliris had known each other, so perhaps this was not as weird as it would have been for just Aranea and Iris.

“I never… wanted you to die. Liliris was just… so fixed on helping Eos help itself, with the darkness coming up...”

“Would Liliris have been able to stay sane in the dark?”

“… No. That’s why she got so obsessed with the Dreamers thing.”

Aranea nodded. “And Aranea Animosa… well, long story. It was more of an accident, but I’ve grown since. I’m not better than Animosa, most likely, but I can also admit my faults at this point. And Ariadne made many mistakes with how she handled Liliris’ growing obsession. Liliris made a few grand missteps – but so did Ariadne. Neither one’s completely free of blame here, but once Ariadne stepped forward she reached that kind of conclusion and decided to intervene.”

Perhaps a hand on Iris’ shoulder was kind of silly. Iris herself was still trembling – that growth spurt she’d hit in the last two years had left her just about at Aranea’s height – and then stepped forward to wrap her arms around Aranea.

“Still, I should’ve stopped. I could’ve stopped. I managed to realise so many things I never got to say after Ariadne was gone, and I finally figured out how… how shitty all of this was. I was terrible to you back then. Disgustingly terrible. But still, I… I got this far, I got so far and now I found you again and… I’m sorry. I’ve been a monster to you, and it’s okay if you never forgive me, but I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you. You’ve learned – I’ve learned.”

* * *

“Don’t think I’ve seen a toddler that babbles as much as Frey since Iris was one. It’s adorable.”

“What, the big man’s going soft over a toddler babbling nonsense?”

“Hey!”

“Ahaha. No, Gladiolus, I’ve barely seen any children doing the same. It’s so cute! Just yesterday he tried telling me some story about ‘Ungel Gor’ and a bottle. He’s not that good with the hard consonants yet.”

* * *

It was more than unusual for them to be seen together, but Aranea needed to find Prompto for once. Since she didn’t know her way around the failed MTs she approached the only one that she recognised – Loqi. He stood out with that eyepatch and failed to blend in unlike Ignis.

“Well, he’s out on a small hunt, but you can stay here until he comes back.”

Seven years into darkness, and things stayed the same. People were mostly accepting of the Niffs around Lestallum now, and the Niffs had managed to integrate themselves somewhat. Aranea had still avoided coming here as much as she could; she technically was a Niff but she preferred keeping away. She had been a Commodore, and someone from the army was bound to recognise something of Ravus in Frey – she avoided Tenebraens that had been involved with the Nox Fleuret family for the same reasons.

It was July, and the Niffs were celebrating the summer festival. Its celebration had nearly stopped under Emperor Aldercapt save for the occasional mentions to it in Gralea. Aranea had visited several outer Niff settlements during her time as mercenary not employed by the government, and there she had seen how people celebrated this. It wasn’t loud and pompous like most other things in Niflheim. It was rather simple all things considered; it was effectively a festivity that lasted a week and was about sharing with your neighbours. News of that festival had spread around Lestallum, and quite a few Lucians, Tenebraens and Accordans had dropped by to see it in action.

Prompto had all but organised this by himself on a whim, going as far as spending most of his money on making sure it was as authentic as possible. If nothing else, the darkness had been a blessing in disguise for the plants that had suffered under the change in climate in Niflheim – most of them were being grown in Lestallum alongside many more from across the world, thus preventing their complete eradication from Niflheim. They had even managed to cross some Lucis-natives with the Niflheim-natives, further encouraging the mixing and mingling of the people. Iris had nearly cried in joy when she had seen one of these blossoming – she had studied that kind of stuff as Liliris after all, and Aranea herself had found herself strangely moved by that as well.

Frey had run off with some kids his age, with the mother of one of them going as far as offering to look after him for the time being so ‘the Commodore could relax for a while and enjoy the festival’. It was weirdly touching, although Loqi had raised his eyebrow at her once the mother and the children had taken off.

“I had assumed you would insist on going with them. You’re quite observant around that kid of yours, even if he’s not actually yours – or whatever you claim he is.”

“Look, I’m his mother, not his captor. He’s six, I oughta stop being so paranoid. Lestallum’s safe as it can be, and even though I don’t live here I’m a Niff. No reason to not trust a good-hearted Southern Niflheim mother.”

In truth she was terrified. Ever since Iris had mentioned she saw the Mark, Aranea had gotten incredibly upset and worried that someone else might. Cor, as someone who was a Dreamer who had served royalty more than once across his lives, was bound to recognise this one. Iris had naturally told him about it, but Aranea had managed to diverge attention on that by saying that it was a Mark of the Dreamer and that it freaked her out as bad as the fact that his birth parents might still be around and could come take him from her.

“Mhm. Sounds very reasonable; my mother was clingy to a fault and tried to raise me to avenge my father. Completely baselessly; she must have known what he was planning. The old harpy probably admitted as much to Ulldor and that’s why he took me under his wing. But you, you’re pretty good as this motherhood thing.”

“… Thanks?”

He leaned backwards and put his drink on the ground with a long sigh.

“This one’s long overdue, Commodore Highwind. I’ve been an ass. A spoiled brat, hell-bent on trying to kill a man who had nothing to do with his coward father abandoning post. By the Draconian, just last year Argentum and I found out that this utter and complete bastard they called Magni Tummelt not only ditched my mother and his son but also Argentum’s despaired mother who only wanted to keep her son safe. I wanted to apologise for the comments I dropped before I was 20.”

People were apologising to her in the darkness, and Aranea had felt the urge to apologise back several times for not having been able to stop any of this from happening by refusing to mow down Prompto Gemmae and busting Ardyn Lucis Caelum out of his gaol and fleeing into the countryside. She shrugged at Loqi.

“You were a head-ass kid, I was a head-ass adult. Forgiven and forgotten, Officer Tummelt, but only if you accept an apology for being such a hard-ass as well.”

“Forgiven and forgotten, Commodore Highwind.”

A few hours passed that way, and Aranea found herself enjoying the festival. A bunch of Tenebraens who had a similar custom in autumn, some sort of harvest festival, offered playing some music they normally did during that. It wasn’t much, but it helped keep spirits in Lestallum up – many of the younger people especially enjoyed learning languages other than their regional ones and Eosian. Prompto still had a funny accent while speaking Modern Niff, but he had gotten near fluent in the last two years. Frey himself had picked up several words and sentences in Tenebraen and Accordan, much to Aranea’s confusion. One time he even went as far as babbling something about the Tidemother’s blessings in flat Modern Accordan. Weskham and Cor had broken into laughter that evening at the bar when she met them, with Weskham even going as far as admitting that he had taught her son that.

Prompto returned in the night – or what would have been night if there were still a day to begin with. Frey was excitedly bouncing around ‘Uncle Prompto’. Aranea herself had nearly forgotten why she needed the Crownsguard and instead decided to lean back and enjoy the show.

* * *

“It’s not a Mark of the Dreamer, is it.”

“...”

“You’ve been dodging that topic for years, Aranea, and I know you have every reason to. You don’t normally hold information back unless it could directly cause trouble down the line. So I have to ask – Frey is not just some random orphan you picked up at the start of night, is he?”

“Shit, Cor, can’t we leave it at that? I beg you, I don’t want the Tenebraens to find out. He’s been raised as Niff, he even considers himself a Niff even though we live in Lucis right now.”

“I just want to ask two things. Although you’ve answered the first question – you’re his birth mother, and the father was Ravus Nox Fleuret. That’s why you don’t want the Tenebraens to find out.”

“...”

“Second question – how much has Iris told you in the last years? I know you two are close, but...”

“…? She hasn’t mentioned anything out of line, but what does that have to do with Frey…?”

“Because she’s a Lucis Caelum as much as she’s an Amicitia. Which means neither the blood of the Oracle nor the line of Lucis have died out. I just--”

“You wonder if it will affect the dawn.”

“… Yes.”

“Well, whether it affects the dawn I have no idea nor do I particularly care. But I’m not letting anything happen to Frey, nor am I going to let random people decide his fate. Nobody knows who his father is – not even he himself. He never asked about it either. Iris clearly doesn’t know or doesn’t care; she considers herself an Amicitia. So why bother?”

“Fair enough, but I… keep an eye on him. There’s no record of male identifying Oracles, but after this long in the literal dark I fear the gods might get… cruel. Even to a six-year-old child like him.”

* * *

The eighth year started with the most startling mission Aranea had ever found herself on. It was supposed to be a hunt and investigation of a newly found tomb together with Iris. She remembered the conversation he had had with Cor just two months ago, and the target proved to be no issue.

“This is the first time I’ll enter one of these tombs. I’m excited.”

Apparently Cor had always kept her out of them. Aranea on the other hand saw no harm in letting her inside that tomb that Ignis and Talcott had nailed down just about a week ago; most tombs were empty and desolate, often near completely useless unless someone knew Old Lucian or Sol. No weapons, and she assumed that this one would be just about the same.

It wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t.

Its roof had collapsed partially and most of the statues had lost their heads. But the tomb itself was untouched and the axe of that king - or queen, they hadn’t figured out who it was and since Aranea could read Sol they had sent her – was firmly placed where it belonged. In the hands of the statue of the deceased ruler, a Lucis Caelum in the later single digits or early double digits. Aranea was supposed to figure that out, after all. She walked over to the inscriptions on the wall, mostly untouched even by weather and sheer age. Iris stayed in front of the statue, her eyes focused on the weapon.

It took Aranea about five minutes before she found the relevant information.

“So, this was Rosetta Lucis Caelum XI, the Verdant. Which makes that weapon the… uhm… that’s a weird word. Latter half’s the Verdant, so this is… an Axe. Axe of the Verdant? No, that’s not the name that’s inscribed here, but I know jack shit about axes… Hook? Harpoon?”

“The Hatchet of the Verdant.”

“Oh? Does it say that somewhere on the statue?”

She turned around and froze in terror when she saw that Iris had her hand on the weapon.

“The Verdant… she’s the reason Lucis managed to be completely self-sufficient even after several embargoes. Her research on agriculture had a long-lasting effect; not unlike Liliris’ studies on darkness-resistant crops and plants developing said resistance over time.”

“No offence meant, Iris, but, can you take your hand off that weapon? I don’t want some funky spirit queen slaughter us with her equally funky axe. Hatchet. Whatever.”

There had been precisely one weapon that she had seen Ardyn pick up. Unlike his brother he had not done a swooping round-trip to collect every weapon for his Armiger that he could, and instead picked them up leisurely at his own pace even during his travels to heal the general populace. She knew it was as simple as the royal willing the weapon into their hands, and if Iris even remotely thought about that right now, what Cor so desperately tried to cover would be in plain sight.

“Iris.”

The young woman shook her head slowly.

“Something’s weird. Things don’t add up.”

“Remember last time you overthought stuff? I’m pretty sure that’s the reason you’re here and remember me from another time.”

“No, Aranea, something’s different compared to Liliris’ slow descend into madness. I feel like this weapon is… calling me.”

If it weren’t that surprisingly cold in Duscae covered in eternal darkness, Aranea would have felt that cold shudder running down her spine. She crossed her arms and huffed. “Nonsense. Let’s go, we found out who it was and what the status of the weapon is.”

Iris naturally didn’t move. Her hand was still on the statue and the weapon – there was no way of removing it. Most people who stole royal arms despite them being largely useless to non-Lucis Caelums completely and utterly trashed the statues holding them.

“Come on, Iris. You brother’s in Lestallum for once, and I _really_ need to check on Frey, he was coming down with a cold before we left.” Lies, stupid and blatant lies that she was making nervously. “Please?”

The hunter withdrew her hand at long last and Aranea sighed in relief. They could go without causing a scene, they could--

A flash of light. A terrified yelp.

This was going to be a hot mess to explain. She hurried over to where Iris had dropped to the ground – normally royals were better prepared for getting their first Armiger weapon. She was going to _kill_ Cor for keeping this a secret.

* * *

“Mama?”

“Yes, Frey?”

“I know you tell me a lot about this… sun thing. It sounds weird. Claire said that the adults were making it up. I called her dumb but she just started laughing at me for not even knowing my dad’s name.”

“Well, Claire is double dumb then.”

“No, but really, I was wondering… what was dad’s name? He can’t be still alive, otherwise he’d be here… right? Or is that something like what happened to Mr. Loqi?”

“… It’s not what happened with Tummelt, no. Your father… he would be here if he were still alive. At least that’s what I hope. Can’t exactly ask him.”

“What was he like?”

“A good listener. A very good listener. And charming when he wasn’t being just about as stubborn as you are.”

“And his name?”

“… Listen, Frey. If I tell you that, you have to swear to me that you don’t go running straight to Claire and spit it in her face. Nobody must know his name – it’s a secret. You can’t tell Claire, nor anyone else. Not even Aunt Iris.”

“Alright? I promise I’ll not say a thing.”

“Ravus. Your father’s name was Ravus.”

* * *

A glass castle was as simple to destroy as making a single mistake. Aranea made many, countless even. When she returned home and found the apartment door locked and no lights on, the first alarm went off. But Frey himself often went to the Niff part of Lestallum, so she walked over. It were Loqi and Prompto, just having returned from a hunting trip themselves, who said that they had not seen him. Which in turn set off her second set of alarms. When she found Cor breathlessly standing in front of her door when she returned, all her fears came tumbling down.

A handful kids had left Lestallum despite being explicitly told not to. They had been beset by Daemons, three of them had died. Three had returned to Lestallum.

Five were missing.

Frey was one of the five.

He was out there, on his own, in the dark, and Aranea found herself sprinting through Lestallum with nothing but complete and utter terror following her.

Commodore Aranea Highwind had always been swift on her feet. She had had no parents to speak of, had trained as dragoon as early as she could. There was no childhood to speak of, but she had never had to stay confined to one region at a time out of danger. Aranea Animosa had parents to speak of, had a pleasant childhood in a beautiful city, had served the royal family first as soldier and then as retainer. But both these women, all these women she had been, had been raised with nothing but the fear of the dark. A hundred hearts seemed to beat in her chest as she ran a Daemon through once she was out of Lestallum and hurried towards the place that Cor had mentioned as the place the kids had been attacked.

Several hunters were there already, including Iris and Ignis, of all people. Aranea barely even stopped to listen, once she had a direction she set out again.

After a few hours they had found three of the five. One dead, two severely injured. Which meant Frey was outside there somewhere, and Aranea’s entire body was worn out from the adrenaline rush she had been in all afternoon. She didn’t return home. There was no way she could ever return home without him there.

Eventually Ignis caught up with her when she paused.

“Aranea.”

“If you’re trying to tell me to come back to Lestallum without him, stuff it.”

“Hah. No such thing; I know you. Just wanted to let you know none of us are going to give up either – and this.”

It was a lantern, but Aranea appreciated the thought behind it. “Thank you.”

They parted there, and more hours passed. Aranea eventually was ready to give up. There was no way she’d ever find him, in the eternal dark. There was no way he’d still be walking around in the eternal dark either. That was when she heard steps behind her.

“Are you perhaps looking for something?”

“Ardyn.”

Of course he had to appear. When she turned around to look at him, all she caught in the dark before the lantern lit up the area was a glint of yellow, obviously his eyes.

“Well, knowing you. You already know what I’m looking for.”

“Tsk. You definitely make this no fun at all.”

“I ain’t here to be pleasurable company.”

He dramatically sighed and stepped aside, only to reveal Frey on the ground behind him. Aranea nearly lunged at the Chancellor with a screech but managed to hold herself back. She put on the most fake smile she could muster and lowered the lantern a little.

“Why am I not surprised.”

“Oh, do not misunderstand. I had no hand in these children’s disappearance. Not that I would have had to intervene with anything that could have happened to this one, but seeing you prowl about in the dark so hopelessly could have made even the coldest stone weep in despair.”

She stood there trembling slightly, but even Ardyn’s normally infuriating smile was missing. “...”

He gestured vaguely and stepped aside entirely, effectively allowing her to get to Frey’s side. She ran over and checked him – he was perfectly unharmed.

“Why? You’ve had more than enough time to do _something_ to him. After what the Marshal and the Amicitias saw in Insomnia, I had assumed...”

“Truly? You would assume I would kill a child already cursed with the burden of royalty? That alone is punishment enough. And as I told Fa in Tenebrae, sometimes living with the burden is worse than dying. Therefore, what point is there in killing him? It is not like he will turn into an Oracle promising salvation to those who cannot be saved all across the globe.”

She narrowed her eyes, but all he did was laugh.

“We’re nine years into darkness. Truly, it is the worst time to get all melancholic. I’ve had enough of this; you’ve had enough of this. I thought some more waiting time wouldn’t drive me completely mad, but here I am, letting blood of the Oracle off the hook.”

“You never made any goddamn sense, but this takes the cake. Why the hell…?”

He shrugged and turned around. She knew that Prompto and Gladiolus had attempted to kill him back in Gralea, but nothing of the sort showed.

“Take the boy and go before I change my mind. Go yell at the Crownsguard to wake their king up faster. I tire of this waiting business.”

Ardyn vanished into the night, and Aranea held still for a few moments before checking Frey for any injuries. The boy was perfectly unharmed just as Ardyn had said. Just a few scratches from what must have been a tumble down a hill. She carefully picked him up and started her march back to Lestallum – the lantern Ignis had handed her proved enough of a threat to the small Daemons around. She would have to thank him for seeking her out and handing her that later.

Shortly before Lestallum, the lights already shining almost too brightly in front of her, she heard a soft sigh.

“Mama…?”

“You’re grounded.”

“Y-Yeah, I deserve that one...”

It were Prompto and Ignis that saw her first and came running over, Prompto almost crying himself despite being nearly 29 years old at this point. They said that they had almost feared that they would have to bury Aranea and Frey Highwind alongside the other children that day.

“Well, he’s going to be grounded for a long while. And… tell Biggs and Wedge I’ll be joining them for their next mission. Time for me to get further out of Lestallum again.”


	25. Ignis - Grave research

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I've not died, although that shelf really tried today.  
> Long story short, in the last... one and a half months... a couple things happened. First, as you might've guessed; Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood released. That alone tied me up for three weeks. Like, barely sleeping and only playing sort of tying up. Oops.  
> Immediately following that comes my father from a work-related day-trip across the country with one piece of news: "I got the apartment". Hence my near death at the bottom of my own shelf today, and the sore legs and arms and overall exhaustion.  
> Adding up to my good old friend depression-related lethargy and exhaustion, plus a death in the family, and we have this.... cocktail.
> 
> Said cocktail dragged on and on and on and I apologise for the delay.

Ignis had learned many things from scratch across all his lifetimes. Though weak and sick, Alacris had acquired a lot of knowledge in his time in Insomnia. Aestus had been required to be adaptable, and several lives of his had had him learn how to hunt, how to get around without being seen, how to build and how to destroy systematically. Learning how to adjust to the world without seeing it was yet another step on the ladder, Ignis surmised when they returned to Lestallum. This was not going to stop him, it absolutely couldn’t stop him.

Baby steps was what the others called it, but Ignis celebrated every single minor success. Not shovelling half the contents of the pan onto the floor was just as grand as the first day he found his way around Lestallum without any aid whatsoever. It was a steady stream of minor and major improvements alongside making sure people would survive in the dark.

Quite a few people on the tentative board of leaders were surprised to even learn that Ignis did in fact not see. It never stopped him.

“Honestly, I think only a sword through the heart could stop Iggy.”

That was the downside. He knew it was a throwaway comment by Gladiolus, a comment that had no impact on anyone else whatsoever, but Ignis could nearly feel the stares Prompto, Cor and Aranea gave him.

“Well, I’d prefer him not being stopped any time soon.” Prompto managed to hold his voice steady.

People did not know what fate awaited the King of Light. King Regis had made sure nothing of the sort would reach Noctis’ ears – both a mercy and unnecessarily cruel. But Ignis had known ever since his memory had started coming up again, and it near killed him at the time. Cartanica had been a balance act between screeching bloody murder at the other three for the way all of them acted – Gladio being too harsh, Noctis being too passive, Prompto being too unwilling to speak up – and trying not to break down sobbing at how unfair all of this was. He didn’t need his eyes, he could very much adapt to live without them.

But Noctis having to die for Eos…?

* * *

“Uhm… They… they said that you learned a lot of things back in the Crown City, and I… was w-wondering...”

It had taken Ignis about a year to be able to cast the cane aside. He still used it in Lestallum as to not freak out its inhabitants that did not know that Ignis Scientia was partially made out of selfless devotion and partially made of seething spite. But once the was out of the city he put it away, usually to re-learn how to fight properly. It was going well enough that he regularly took jobs outside of the city, some completely on his own.

Talcott was nervously tugging on his sleeve.

“I was w-wondering if you could read… Sol. Old Lucian. That stuff.”

He could, in fact. It was no secret that the Dreamers knew languages at this point, going as far as having open and often agitated discussions in Accordan or Tenebraen with some other inhabitants of Lestallum. “I can.”

“…!”

“Do you need help translating something?”

That was the day Ignis first heard of Talcott’s plan. The boy was trying to find out something about their current situation. Ignis could have easily given him about half the answers he wanted right off the bat, perhaps even more, but he did not want to cause trouble for the other Dreamers. Aranea had just returned after a year of absence after all, Prompto was struggling to come to terms with being a Niff by birth and a Lucian by upbringing, and Cor himself was as unreadable as always – the man was most likely struggling with accepting the fact that everything he had lived for in this life had completely come apart and lay before him in shambles. Outing all of them as people who had lived through the centuries and through effectively every generation of Lucian ruler would have more than certainly caused them trouble.

Talcott himself was more than happy to have Ignis’ support; it was endearing. He could just about imagine how Talcott beamed at him, judging by the pitch of his voice alone, and Ignis couldn’t help but grin back at that.

“So, it’s a deal! We’re gonna go check out any old graves that hunters find in the dark!”

Finding royal tombs had indeed gotten easier. If there was still, by any chance, a weapon inside, they glowed slightly in the dark to ward off Daemons. If there were no weapons remaining inside they instead stood out with their white stone. Ignis had to wonder if these tombs had been built in white deliberately, that even the kings and queens before Ardyn and Izunia’s time had known that one day eternal darkness would fall and swallow Eos whole.

“Just remember that I might not always be available immediately – Lestallum and its people have my top priority.” He didn’t even wait for a sound of confirmation before continuing. “It is what Noctis would have wanted me to do.”

This time, he could feel that Talcott was thinking about his next words before finally settling: “Of course, Ignis. His Majesty’s kingdom is your priority.”

* * *

“Ignis… are you okay?”

“Of course I am.”

“He really… he really shouldn’t have said that.”

“Perhaps neither should I have stormed out like that – but hearing him effectively threatening to blind that Niff really...”

“No, it’s okay, I get it. I just wanted to check on you.”

“I am fine. You should really check on your friend, though.”

“You’re my friend. Loqi’s more… kind of a fellow reject, I guess. And he’s perfectly okay. But I’m worried about _you_ , Ignis. Just, if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m around, okay?”

“Much appreciated, Prompto, but currently not required. I’m fine.”

“Mhm...”

* * *

Three and a half years into darkness, and Ignis felt like the weight of the world was crushing him. He was standing in a tomb he and Talcott had gone to, and Ignis had stopped his hands halfway across the inscription.

He normally had Talcott letter-by-letter transcribe what was on the walls and statues and later, in Lestallum, handed him a Braille-print copy of that transcription. It wasn’t the most efficient way of translating things, but Ignis appreciated the work outside of planning and rationing for Lestallum itself. Sometimes Talcott got letters wrong, which in turn made some words gibberish, but Ignis generally knew what to do with them. This tomb he just wanted to see if he could, just by following the inscriptions with his hands, translate right in the field.

According to Talcott a nearly completely smashed statue that had to have been holding a weapon at some point after its creation was behind them, and Ignis had stopped in front of an inscription.

“Ignis?”

“...”

At first it had been foreign, bewildering. He’d mourned the loss of his sight and gone through all stages of grief in all but ten seconds all over again before starting to test if he could feel the finely chiselled writing on the wall.

“Ignis, what’s it say?”

He felt like he was stumbling back in time, all the way back to when he met a guard and a young noble walking through the outer parts of the Crown City, followed by some thugs that always followed strangers around. The way the two of them had eyed him with distrust when he offered to get them out of the city without major incidents that might or might not have ended in the deaths of either one of them.

“This… this is the Tomb of the… Builder.”

He remembered the day he and the prince had returned to the Crown City without the guard who had turned out to be a reborn Cor. The way the prince had bowed his head to his father, the very man that had effectively caused Ignis and Cor to be there in the first place. How the prince had thrown himself into studies of combat and infrastructure, how the prince nearly missed his own father’s funeral because he was trying to break up a fight and nearly died on the same day they laid Izunia Lucis Caelum to rest.

Ignis barely even remembered Emil’s face, but those memories were bubbling up from the depths of his memory once more, and it was nearly breaking his already broken heart all over again.

“The… Builder?”

“Emil Lucis Caelum II.”

Talcott gasped a little and came running over. He had been learning some of the letters and grammar with Ignis when Ignis was not busy with hunts or Lestallum, and immediately tried to decipher something on the wall Ignis was standing at. Ignis himself felt his heart fall deeper and deeper into an empty void the further he dragged his shaking hands across the inscription. The letters were familiar. The writing, too, was very familiar. But all it did was crush him further and further until finally he curled his hands into a fist and hit the wall when he reached the end of the message someone had left him and Cor.

“Ignis!?”

“… Gods… Gods, please…”

He had spent a fair share of time watching Emil first rise to a grand king, and then watched his decline to regret and hatred for his own position. Ignatius had remained at his side when Io had failed to do so, and until the day Ignatius died he had stayed in Insomnia just to be the Builder’s right hand man. It made sense for Ignis to be good at planning infrastructure – he had done it before, albeit with more ancient techniques.

Ignatius had never figured out what exactly had caused it and neither had Ignis until Alacris had started his research. It had been a theory at best, something that kept him awake once in a while when his memory awakened in another life, another time. Now he had a confirmation, right on this wall that apparently was more grey than white at this point, with moss covering parts of it. A message that had lived through the centuries, and perhaps even survived Ardyn’s wrath on more than one occasion.

“Let’s… Let’s just go, Talcott. There’s nothing for us here – no weapon, and the Builder had nothing to do with what’s happening to us. We’re looking for the Founder or a tomb even earlier than that.”

* * *

_To my retainers_

_Though it took years, I think I understand now. What you were. What I am. How death keeps eluding me, how it does not affect you as much as I would have thought. When Io – whatever your name truly is – refused to come with us and subsequently died, I nearly lost heart. When Ignatius – if that was truly your name – died to sickness after many years, I thought I would die just immediately afterwards. I did not. I never did, no matter how many times I came face to face with Carbuncle. Was that what drove my father mad, or was it the burden of a secret I never managed to fully unravel?_

_I do know now that you will be back – I do not know when my words will reach you._

_Thank you for everything._

* * *

It was rare to see him and the Marshal of the Crownsguard sitting together, let alone with sombre expressions. Most people wondered about that for a moment, but the very select few who knew what they were understood and thankfully told the others not to bother them.

Ignis was mostly upset over something else entirely, but Cor once more was faced with the fact that he never saw his lieges do what they wanted to do. Ignis, on the other hand, was just wildly aware of the fact that Noctis was going to die nearly immediately after getting up again. There was a fair chance that Ardyn might grow impatient enough to jump the final King of Lucis before he had a chance to recover from wherever he was and whatever was happening to him. They had not found the place that Noctis would awaken in, but he felt like Ardyn knew and said not a single thing about it. In general, ever since Gralea they had not seen the Chancellor of Niflheim.

Most of the Niffs claimed that he possibly escaped with most of the also missing higher ups – nobody had the heart to tell them that their Emperor was dead, even though judging by Loqi’s sour expression they knew that some people were aware of the fact that Niflheim was without a ruler and would be without a ruler when the light returned. The Chancellor was missing in action according to those who didn’t know.

Those who knew simply rolled their eyes. Some went as far as snarling out some insult or spitting on the ground.

It was like the complete opposite of the Tenebraens. The majority of Tenebraens had accepted that Lady Lunafreya, the blessed Oracle, was dead for good and that her brother had perished in Gralea like the fool he had been. A few people however believed that Lunafreya was still alive and in hiding, all thanks to Ravus’ sacrifice.

The only thing people accepted as truth was that Ravus was dead – after all, the trustworthy Crownsguard had said that they had found him dead in Gralea together with the now missing King Noctis. The only people who knew what had happened to Ravus after his death were the inner circle of the Crownsguard and Aranea Highwind. There was no point in telling people what the Starscourge and the Chancellor could do. Dawn would come, that was what Ignis truly believed with all his heart.

Even if it hurt him to think about it.

Eventually Cor left, and Ignis was left on his own. He had never before in his life minded being alone with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company, but right now he wished there was something, anything, anyone to get the gloom out of his head. Many people held their head high in the darkness despite the overwhelming odds they had faced in their lives. There were survivors of Insomnia who had fled from the city when darkness fell and the Niffs had given up their patrols or just died. Those people had been used to an impossibly high living standard, commodities that had long since stopped working as they were locked into the city with nothing but a curfew that kept them alive and safe from Daemons that started haunting the streets at night. Some of these people had lost family members and friends to the night Insomnia fell, some others had lost them to the Scourge since the city fell. Yet all these people, in the part of the city they had managed to build on top of what already existed, held their heads high.

Lucians in general seemed to be oddly confident that their wayward liege would return and banish the darkness – unless they were historians they did not know that the King would not remain to rule after bringing back the light. Accordans, too, shared this streak of optimism – they had rebuilt after Leviathan had destroyed vast reaches of their capital and effectively the heart of the country. They could rebuild again. And again.

Tenebraens were a lot more sombre. They believed, of course, that the light would return – Oracle Sylva and Oracle Lunafreya had preached it, Lunafreya herself had effectively sworn it before her untimely demise. Hundreds of generations of women who had healed the sick and protected the weak had paved a way for careful realism. The world was in a harsh place. People would be dying before the light returned, and after the return of the light not everything would magically go back to the way it had been. But they, too, believed that everything would one day return to how it had been. The only thing they mourned was the loss of the Nox Fleuret bloodline; a family that had always made certain the light would not fade until it was time for it to go. These people would never see the dawn.

The Niffs on the other hand showed nothing. They had no opinions, they had no beliefs. At least that was what it looked like to the others. But the Niffs themselves found themselves facing a complete and utter overhaul of every basis of their empire. The blood of the emperor had been lost just as the blood of the Oracle had been and the blood of Lucis would be as well. They had gotten used to things that were outlandish and terrifying, and had now entered a state of reflection.

Ignis himself wished he could reflect like the Niffs did, but all he found was a gaping hole in his chest whenever he thought of the dawn. He didn’t want the sun to rise, because that would mean Noctis would be dead. He could care less about Ardyn at this point – something so outrageous he almost heard himself from the past gasp in shock – but Noctis was wholly uninvolved in this mess other than being a distant relative of Izunia and just so happened to have been the unfortunate human that the gods burdened with the ability to bring back the light.

It was disgusting. Absolutely disgusting, and it made him only bury his face in his hands and sit still for a few more minutes before finally leaving.

He’d been so certain he’d make it through the life where he was called Ignis once more with relative ease and determination. The determination was wavering at long last, and his facade was starting to show its cracks.

* * *

“I’ve been a complete and utter asshole.”

“How nice of you to catch up on that.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight after… the Insomnia excursion. I think Iris or Cor told you?”

“Yes.”

“Naturally it doesn’t excuse my behaviour, but I still wanted to apologise for that. It was… cruel. Way too cruel.”

“Threatening violence to someone who is telling the truth usually is.”

“How would you know he was telling the truth, Ignis? Niffs aren’t exactly known for… always being truthful.”

“Perhaps you were still too heated at the time, Gladio, but if you had paid closer attention you would have noticed something – or rather someone – whose reactions alone would have told you what to think of Loqi’s claims. Prompto. Now, you may argue that Prompto has not always been the most reliable when it comes to trust, which is a fair claim. But. And that is the main point. Prompto has gotten to know Loqi enough to spare his life and then offer help when he turned up here in Lucis.”

“… I hadn’t… I really hadn’t considered that.”

“Prompto has sworn an oath to the crown just as much as we have. He would not bring in someone he would consider a danger to Lestallum; we are in Lucis and therefore on royal territory. A territory he has sworn to protect. People he has sworn to protect.”

“Ah...”

“Alas. You did not. But I accept your apology, as long as you swear you never threaten to take someone’s sight again.”

“I swear on my father’s grave I won’t do that again.”

“Thank you, Gladio. For apologising.”

* * *

Eventually even Talcott grew tired of finding tombs that were not the Founder’s. Most of them were in such disrepair that nothing of use could be gained from them. Nothing but more plantlife that was slowly withering away in the dark unless it had adapted to it already or in advance. Hilariously enough, they had realised that one of the earliest plants to have started adapting to the dark had been ivy. Iris, too, had noted that ivy had already begun its rapid adaption back when she was Liliris; it had been one of the plants that had confirmed her theory back then.

In yet another ruined tomb, Talcott kicked a rock. It hit a bunch of ivy, judging by the rustling.

“It’s just never the Tomb of the Founder. Never ever. There’s not even a name left here any longer. Eight years, and this was completely pointless, and you put yourself in so much danger to get us here in one piece.”

Ignis snorted a little. It had taken a little longer than usual to cut through that group of grenades that had floated about lazily in the countryside near this place, but he had never truly been in danger. But as he had told Prompto a few years ago, they had truly not found anything yet. Not even as much as a clue as to where the tomb was, and if they only found one last pillar of it standing because Ardyn had rightfully destroyed it over the past centuries.

“Perhaps no name, but make certain to check under the ivy. After all--”

“There might be something left. Gotcha, boss, I was just about to start doing that.”

For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of Talcott messing with the ivy. Ignis leaned against a half-broken pillar and wondered what this place looked like. Possibly completely broken and in eternal disrepair.

“Huh...” Talcott stopped messing with the ivy and Ignis heard him stand up. “That’s odd.”

“What’s up?”

“This is the place they normally have inscribed who it was. Naturally it’s completely broken and everything, but… that’s a much older script. So that’s definitely from before the Founder. But that’s not the odd thing here – someone else scratched something into the stone, and I’d say… hmm… Old Lucian? Modern Sol? I don’t really know, both of them are rather similar… Give me a few minutes, Ignis.”

He walked over to the younger. The ivy had truly entangled the entire ruin, not unlike what Iris had told them about the temple she first met Ardyn outside of back when she was Liliris.

Talcott was murmuring to himself as the translated things word for word and checking what he knew. A few more minutes passed and he leaned backwards.

“Well. It’s not Lucian at all. It’s _Tenebraen_ , though I don’t know where to place it. But I don’t speak enough Tenebraen to translate that. Do you?”

“I can try.”

He leaned down where he had heard Talcott earlier. The message was chiselled into the stone like so many before them, but Talcott was correct; the language was not Lucian and therefore not something that Talcott had properly learned nor expected to ever translate. Ignis adjusted his glasses and started working on the script in the wall. It was easier than anticipated, as if someone had made a point in using simple language – it wasn’t that hard to figure out who it had been, and Ignis shook his head when he reached the halfway point of the message.

“Well, Talcott, I dare say we have a clue as to where to look for the Founder. But, I fear we might not be able to go there together.”

“Where? Where?”

Ignis stood back up.

“We ought to return to Lestallum post-haste. There is something I would quite like to discuss with the Marshal and Gladio.”

That was answer enough for Talcott, whose eyes must’ve gone wide in the dark judging by the sudden silence.

It wasn’t very often that he found messages from across the times by the people he had known. Once he’d come across something he himself had written on a wall of a house as a child, sometime after he had been Alacris. It hadn’t even been a message dedicated to himself – much less a message in general – but he had found it again after more lives. Once he tried to contact a version of Cor with a warning; Cor had arrived at the campfire laughing that said message of the allegedly safe place to hide in was infested with a nasty Daemon had been too little, too late. At the very least Cor’s death at the time had made people investigate it and subsequently had them getting rid of the Daemon, turning that particular cliff once more into a safe space to hide in from people or pursuers of any sort as long as the person knew about it vaguely enough.

This was the first time that Ignis had come across a message left by Ardyn, however. Judging by the age it must have been shortly after he returned from Tenebrae – thus sometime after Prompto or Aranea had lived there. It was Tenebraen from around that time period, still kind of stiff and hard to read, lacking some serious Niff influences altogether and sounding a lot more melodic when spoken rather than written.

* * *

_There is but one who knows where the Founder rests,_

_make haste, for dark might bring madness to the tests._

_Life or death as judged on the cliff even as the light begins to dim,_

_here’s hoping one in the Chosen King’s time has already defeated him._

* * *

“So, lemme get this straight.”

Somewhere in the back of the council meeting room Iris was talking about the sun. The children of some of the council members, led by Aranea’s Frey, were sitting on the floor listening to her; though the older ones like Frey himself sounded doubtful when they asked their questions. It wasn’t really all that weird to think about – they had never seen the sun, why should they believe in it?

“You want me to take you to the Tempering Grounds.”

Gladiolus, for his part, sounded less than impressed. While Ignis could not see it, he imagined that Cor was simply staring at him with his usual confused expression. The Marshal said nothing, and Gladiolus groaned a little.

“Care to share why you want that? Like, I’m not opposed to that but there’s several other things you can do while suicidal.”

“I am not suicidal, I am asking this of you in perfect clarity, Gladio.”

“Let’s go with that. Say I actually take you there. What’s your plan? Challenging the trials?”

“A feat I certainly would manage nowadays, but no. I have no intention of challenging the trials.”

“Then what the hell are you going to do there?”

Ignis sighed and folded his hands. Somewhere behind him Aranea and Iris were scolding the kids that had started talking about how the sun sounded like a thing the adults made up and subsequently had made the younger children cry. Cor was drumming his fingers on the table now, apparently looking into the direction of the commotion behind them. Ignis, on the other hand, remained calm as ever. Infuriatingly calm as some might call it – a trait also seen with Loqi Tummelt these days despite the obvious dislike for him in other parts of Lestallum.

“The Blademaster, Gilgamesh, might know something about the Founder. Surely you would be interested in this as well, given recent… developments.”

A long pause. Gladiolus was almost holding his breath, and judging by the sudden cracking of his fingers he had looked over into the loud corner and exchanged a glance with Aranea.

“Fine, you got me by the balls there, Iggy. I’m interested for sure. But what exactly do you hope to gain from trying to pry answers from a cryptic bastard like the Blademaster? He might not know anything, or he might not answer you.”

Ignis tapped the table once. “That’s where you and Cor come in. As survivor and successful challenger of the trials respectively, the Blademaster is bound to talk to you somehow. I would not get far without either of you anyway, I do not know where the Tempering Grounds are. But, Talcott and I came to the conclusion that the Blademaster might know more about the Founder’s resting place, which in turn might give us answers to--” The change in atmosphere all but told him that all adults currently in the room were staring at him. “--several questions that have been raised due to _recent developments_.”

He could have simply asked Prompto about it, too. But he wasn’t entirely sure if Prompto would want to come along to the Tempering Grounds; not after what happened to him there and the fact that he could have been there with the rest of Izunia’s servants. While Ignis was curious he did not necessarily want to bring up bad memories.

Gladiolus had his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. ‘Recent developments’ had definitely caught the attention of Aranea and Iris in the back, both of whom looked mildly disturbed. Cor deliberately looked away – it was rather clear that he knew several things about how Iris had managed to take a royal arm just like that, but was more than unwilling to share them. All things considered he couldn’t even be mad at Cor; the man had always had the lives where important information was revealed and he had ever been hesitant to share it. Keeping secrets was after all the biggest requirement for being accepted as royal retainer.

“… Well, Marshal, what do we do?”

Ignis could almost feel the tension in the room right now, and he could not help but smirk somewhat. The Founder – Izunia was the number one thing that managed to grab the attention of any of the Dreamers at the moment. Even those unrelated to their scheme like Iris, and those other few they met along the way like the hunter Verus, had started gathering as much information as they could. It seemed as if the focus of every single person who had lived more than one life at this point had shifted towards finding the necessary information to make it through the endless night wiser than ever before.

“It would be… most unwise to not do as he asks. There might be other people – there _are_ other people who know where the Proving Grounds are, and they might put themselves and Ignis here in unnecessary danger. But your friend, with all due respect, is too stubborn to give it up now that he has spoken and set his mind on this goal. Therefore, I do suggest we do as he says and be his escort.”

Ignis shook his head. “Not my escort, anything but my escort. But be my witnesses instead. Witnesses who ask no questions.”

* * *

The voices of the canyon were ever the same, not that Ignis would know. At this point they had, however, utterly fallen silent and watched the successful challenger, the unsuccessful challenger and the stranger descend without saying anything or feeling anything. Were it not for the fact that the three men knew that there were other people, the formerly not so silent judges of the trials, they would have assumed this was nothing more than a desolate ruin. Ignis himself clearly felt that there was something here that was watching their every step; sometimes he even felt something whisk past them. Not that he would have seen it, but neither Cor not Gladiolus ever seemed to notice that there was something behind them at times.

He needed to stay composed, but the moment he tripped over a rusty sword he was ready to give up. This place was choking, and whatever spirits Prompto had claimed inhabited this place were playing their tricks on him.

Ignis marched on, despite the overwhelming urge to flee. Cor said nothing but knew what was going through the other man’s head. Gladiolus was focused on the path ahead, in case there were any Daemons that would jump them as they had in the past when he had taken the trials. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even the wind moved and the voices remained silent – it was as if this place was steadily losing its eerie energy.

Eventually they stopped. He heard something clanging as Gladiolus walked ahead a little and pushed over a sword of some sort. He assumed that this had been done on purpose – and as if to confirm his thoughts, Gladiolus raised his voice.

“Blademaster.”

Ignis, much like Aranea and Cor, had barely anything to do with the man back at the castle. It was mostly related to the fact that Ignis had never been a soldier who had been trained in the castle. He owed Ardyn his life, and therefore he came along as guide of a sort at first, and then as retainer afterwards. He swore his loyalty and trained under Aranea and Cor, but he never mingled with the other prince’s people. Therefore this man was a stranger to him. But Ignis was definitely not a stranger to Gilgamesh, even two millennia later.

“The years of dark are not yet passed; what is that you hope to gain here?”

A familiar voice, but if Ignis had not known who was waiting at the bottom of the canyon he would not have been able to remember who it was.

“My friend here would like to speak to you.” Gladiolus’ voice effectively said ‘my part here is done, Ignis’.

Instead of reacting to that he stepped forwards and bowed into the direction of Gilgamesh. “I shan’t intrude upon your grounds any longer than necessary, Blademaster, but there are some questions I would like to have an answer to, if you would be so kind.”

There was a long silence, and Ignis nearly jumped out of his skin when he once more felt something brush past his shoulders. Then he heard a sigh.

“Very well. Ask and I shall answer.”

Judging by the sound Gladiolus made he had not been expecting Gilgamesh to comply and instead thought that the Blademaster would instead toss Ignis into the swords on the path’s edges. Ignis himself relaxed slightly; this was better than he had anticipated.

“My thanks, Blademaster.” He bowed again, nothing more than a show of respect towards someone who had a higher position. It still possibly looked strange and out-of-date to people who knew what ths bow meant, but Ignis could not care less for once. At least already being sort of old-fashioned in the ways of politeness worked in his favour this time.

After that he sat down and crossed his legs. The entire canyon shuddered – or at least a sudden shift in the atmosphere in this place made it appear like this. He heard a surprised gasp from behind him and then Cor’s quiet but stern command of sitting down as well. Ignis merely tilted his head.

“I have come for something else entirely, but there is one thing that arose as we descended upon your domain here – according to my companions, all three of whom have descended before me, during their trials there were both spirits and Daemons. Yet no Daemons assaulted us during our descent; but the spirits yet linger just out of reach. What is the meaning of this?”

A short hum. “You are most perceptive where others are not, judging by the expression your witnesses make. You are quite correct; the spirits remain from harming you under my command, young master Pacis.”

He could hear the many questions Gladiolus did not dare asking. He had agreed to be a silent witness, not a witness asking questions in the middle of a conversation, and for now Ignis was grateful.

“So they are under your command yet. What about the Daemons?”

“Fled. What once bound us to this place no longer exists now that the Chosen is gathering his strength within the divine Provenance. But while the shackles have been opened, we are yet unable to pass on. The Daemons, seeing as they are naught but commanded by their nature and slightly influenced by the Founder’s brother’s thirst for blood, have left.”

Ignis nodded slowly. “Which would explain why the earth feels so drained here. If I remember correctly, Gemmae said upon his return to the in-between, that this place was bound and your souls shackled by the power of the crystal. If the power is declining now, why are you and yours not permitted to pass on?”

A long pause. He heard several soft voices behind him whisper to each other, until Gilgamesh silenced them with a gesture.

“Would you truly wish to know such things?”

“’Tis why I made this journey, as the last out of four, even if the second never made it further than the first trial. The cautious, the reckless and the bold all made their journeys, and as the final link in the chain I am here not as challenger but as pursuer of wisdom.”

“… You have been granted an ability to see beyond what others do, and yet the gods would punish you for your gift. Just as the Healer succumbed to corruption, as the Accursed will yield to the boundless hope and regrets of the Chosen. Your sharp intelligence has been beset with the loss of sight.”

It was Ignis’ turn for a pause, until he finally merely laughed. “I yet live, Blademaster. I yet live. That is the thing that matters.”

The still canyon once more carried the soft whispers of several spirits that flicked about the place they were, until finally he heard the Blademaster stand up. “We cannot pass for a single reason: the crystal yet yields power. The bloodline and the crystal bind us; while they hold no power over us so we yet linger until the morning sun once more rises upon the horizon.”

The moment the sun rose would mark the end of the bloodline as far as historians were concerned. But Ignis leaned forwards a little anyway. “If the bloodline binds you--”

“I know what you speak of.” Gilgamesh turned around. What way, Ignis had no idea, but he figured the Blademaster was staring into the canyon. “But no. The girl will not bind us; it ends with the Chosen. You would all do better if you let her live her life as whatever she had been raised rather than a royal. Any children, be they adults now or still children, are better off that way. You do not need blood royal to guide you. No mortal ever needed it; ‘tis the divine gifts to bloodlines that set the stage as it has been, is, and will cease to be sooner or later. And even the ungifted play their roles.”

He almost could imagine a faint laugh drift through the canyon, a life long past. Ignis tilted his head and tried to shake the faint memories of Aestus’ early life out of his head. He needed to focus on right now.

“So the end of the Aldercapt line as it played out was planned.”

“So it was indeed. All murders, from a king’s demise to an impatient soldier killing but a servant – it was predestined.”

Talcott had blamed himself so relentlessly for what had happened to Jared. It had taken a while for the teenager to open up to Ignis during their travels, but once he started pouring out the entire story sobbing hysterically in a desolate royal grave Ignis had felt nothing but hatred for the empire. Nothing but cold contempt for what had used to be the person who he swore an oath to, whom he owed hs life.

“The Six are not exactly fair. None of these people, including you and yours, deserved this.”

“You and yours watched through the eyes of mortals. We watched through the eyes of monsters. And neither mortal nor monster get more or less of the god’s attention.”

Ignis nodded and stood up. Not any other person, be they living of simply a spirit, said anything as he approached the Blademaster to stand beside him. He was rather certain that Gilgamesh was staring into the canyon by now and simply stood beside him for a few minutes.

“Is there anything else you require of me? While yet bound, our powers wane as the dawn waxes.”

He nodded.

“The Grave of the Founder. I would like to know if you have any idea where they buried Izunia. Not because of spite, not because of petty revenge – I am rather certain my liege and his brother, twisted as he may be, has long side done such. Knowledge. What I wish to acquire is knowledge.”

A long moment of silence. The whispers rose again, spirits and Ignis’ companions both, until at long last Gilgamesh let out a long breath.

“The other side of the canyon shall give you the answers you seek, young Master Pacis.”

* * *

“So, you gonna explain that or no?”

“Considering you nearly left me for dead during the last hunt, definitely not.”

“Fine. Just humour me for a sec there – Pacis?”

“What part of ‘definitely not’ is so hard to grasp, Gladiolus?”

“Alright, alright.”

“… There is another answer I can give you, however.”

“Oh?”

“Iris.”

“Ah.”

“Granted, you definitely know she was only your half-sister, and Noctis your half-brother, so we may skip right to the point of the Blademaster’s words.”

“Something about letting her remain what she was, wasn’t it?”

“Iris has no influence on the outcome or the aftermath. People do not know she is one of the Lucis Caelum bloodline – as long as she herself does not announce it loudly to the world, she will remain what she is now. Will remain it when the sun rises.”

“...”

“An Amicitia. That is who she is. But, unless my theory is very far off, even admitting such would not change much. The bloodline’s powers are tied to the crystal. The crystal will waste its energy on bringing back the dawn, thus finally turning into naught but a pretty rock. That is what I assume will happen, given that even the Blademaster mentioned that the crystal yet binds them until the sun rises, after which they will be free to leave this plane. So, no matter the weapon she has currently accidentally picked up – the power will most likely disperse the moment the sun rises after...”

“After _what_ , Ignis?”

“… After Noct does his duty.”

“They’ll both be powerless.”

“They’ll… both be powerless, indeed.”

* * *

“So, did darkness bring madness to the tests?”

“No. Although the madness bit might have meant that the tests were effectively cancelled altogether in the dark – which indeed happened.”

He heard the laugh ahead of him as they followed the rocky path that led ever downwards. “I see, I see. And it’s just across the canyon?”

Ignis shrugged into Talcott’s general direction with a sigh. “I reckon it is. With it being dark and all it might hard to see; not that I could see it in the first place, but alas.”

There was no reply, and Ignis instead focused on the task on hand. If what the Blademaster had said was true, they would find the Founder here, or whatever Ardyn had left of his resting place. He didn’t expect much and he had admitted as much when he had declined Prompto’s quick offer of a helping hand. Although he knew that the younger man had more reason to seek it than him, he felt it inappropriate to let Prompto come along. After so long he had finally found his place, and people were starting to accept the hard facts and started including him again. He was much more of a Lucian than a Niff, even if most of the time Prompto was heard speaking quickly and laughing alongside the Niffs. He was not going to go to Niflheim should they live through the inevitable encounter with Ardyn once Noctis returned.

Talcott had already mentioned that he was going to stay in Lestallum no matter what came. If the eternal dark remained until the day he died he would have spent most of his time in the city, he had said one evening as they sat on a roof after yet another hunter’s funeral.

Surprisingly enough the most confused answer had come from Aranea. She had been Niff born and raised – but in the past she had been Lucian more often than not, and now her son was half Tenebraen. It had been said son who, almost a little too proudly, had said that he wanted to go where his mother had grown up. How he wanted to see Niflheim and the sunsets over plains of snow. Frey then had no idea why Aranea had burst into tears.

Cor, Iris and Gladiolus had stated their intent to rebuild Insomnia one day. One day, and Iris had looked into the direction of the city with sparkling eyes. She loved it despite all the bad things that had happened, and when they asked her about that sudden passion for it, she had only replied that she loved the city as much as her parents had.

The only person on the roof that day who had not known what they wanted to do had been Ignis. He had found purpose in trying to find the Founder’s grave after learning how to fight once more, but that very moment he had been unable to answer.

Every time he thought of some place to call home, his mind wandered back to summer days he spent sitting in an apartment he usually kept clean, with Noctis complaining about the most minor things while important work went unnoticed. It soured his mood whenever he thought of it – not because he was mad at Noctis even years later, but rather because he missed these times so much his entire mind went black for a moment. He knew Noctis would return only to die, that nothing could turn back time and give him back his sight; but the fact that he would not see that face again, this time hopefully with determination instead of the confusion and anger he had often worn like a mask when he thought nobody was watching during the first weeks after Insomnia’s fall.

He heard Talcott stop in front of him before he could descend further into angrily cursing the fate of the Chosen once again.

“Ignis, there’s… white stone. You were right. The Blademaster was right.”

He’d been wondering why it had been so far removed from Insomnia, but Ignis was about to get his answers. He felt it.

“Nicely spotted. Do you see the entrance?”

“A little further down.”

When they reached it, Talcott hesitated.

“What do you think we’ll find?”

“Destruction. Decay, perhaps. If it is completely untouched by time or vengeful spirits I will eat my gloves.”

With that small laugh, Talcott fished the key out of his pockets.

“Hold on. I don’t think you’ll need that. The only ones with locks were the ones that people knew about to keep the weapons within safe.”

“Oh! Right.”

A creaking noise. Ignis was rather certain that he heard something in the stone walls crumble, perhaps showering Talcott in dust. After that followed a heartbeat of silence.

“Oh my… Oh goodness.”

He followed the voice, and the moment he entered the tomb he felt that it was mostly intact, despite the odd broken pieces. According to Talcott the weapon was missing – Prompto had claimed that it was with the Blademaster years and years ago, and Cor had confirmed it when they returned from the Proving Grounds the other week.

Talcott was rummaging through things. “It’s weird. I was expectin’ this place to be off worse. Kinda like the Builder’s, maybe a little more wrecked. But this here’s… not as much of a wreck as I assumed it’d be?”

“You and me both. I was convinced it would be destroyed and completely empty. I did not expect anything, but for it at least to still stand thoroughly exceeds my expectations.”

That was when Talcott paused for a moment and then inhaled sharply. “Wait, you expected nothing to be here? Why did you want to find it, then?”

Ignis’ brushed the statue sitting squarely in the middle of the room. Surprisingly enough it was mostly unchanged by time, save for the eyes. Those felt like someone had deliberately scratched away at them for quite some time with something. He could perfectly imagine Ardyn sitting on the statue, hunched over and tossing damnations and curses out as he dragged his fingers across the eyes. The rest of the face was as untouched as the rest of the statue; the only things missing its eyes and weapon.

“I, for a fact, knew that nothing would be in here. The Rapier of the Founder has been found and confirmed to lie across the canyon, in the arrangement the Blademaster has surrounding the battlegrounds of the final trial. The Marshal indeed confirmed that there was a weapon not quite fitting the typically rusty or broken weapons, but it did not seem like the Blademaster himself had been using it. What I wanted to find, though… Recall what we discovered in the Tomb of the Builder. I assume there might be something here, perhaps not of the Founder himself but definitely of someone related to this mess. Which brings me to my next question… Talcott, would you be as kind as to help me find where this might be hidden away?”

The teenager said nothing and simply gave an affirmative grunt before getting to work. Ignis’ hand lingered on one of the scratched out eyes – the left one seemed to be off worse than the right one, and he almost started laughing at the irony. He withdrew his hand slowly and started to check the statue for anything else he might have missed earlier.

A few hours of silence passed, with Talcott marvelling at the delicately carved markings and decorations that had survived the ages occasionally but then falling into a silent focus again. Ignis for his part found nothing of value, and even Talcott eventually raised his voice with a disappointed sigh. “There’s nothing. It’s… it’s empty, like you said.”

It struck Ignis as odd, and he paused in the tomb. He heard the soft shuffle of Daemons somewhere above that echoed through the canyon, and he almost thought he heard a voice complain to the Blademaster across, but for the time being he focused on the room. Talcott’s breathing was the only thing he heard, but when he focused further he thought he felt something.

A soft pulse, barely strong enough to notice. Energy that felt like a pulse was always the crystal’s energy – Ignis had learned as much and felt as much first-hand ever since he had been barely older than seven. Several of his past lives had worked with said magic – or been on the receiving end of it.

He held his breath and turned back to the statue.

“Talcott. There might be something around this thing that I missed, given I cannot see. Would you be as king as to check it? This seems to be our last chance at finding something of value.”

Talcott moved after a moment of confusion, and Ignis felt the soft pulse pound against his temples. Now that he knew it was there it was unmistakably the same magic trace that King Regis and Noctis, and much earlier Izunia and Ardyn had left behind whenever they used their magic. The current users were marginally weaker than the ones of eld; whatever this spell was it had survived across generations and ages, and it barely withstood the crystal’s energies returning to Providence where Noctis slept until the time was right.

“Ignis, I… I think there is something… built into the base…? Give me a hand here.”

* * *

“Milady, if you permit--”

“I cannot answer if what you seek is about the Chosen.”

“No, that’s not it. Not entirely.”

“The Accursed is similarly off limits to mortals, bound by Carbuncle or not.”

“I repeat, that is not what I seek, Lady Gentiana.”

“… What is it that you wish?”

“It is about… blood royal. Did all who came before know what would befall the Chosen? … All the way back to the man who would father the Accursed? Further than that?”

“Oracles and Lucian Rulers did indeed know ever since the eve of the Infernian’s betrayal. That one would come to cleanse the sins away.”

“… Cleanse.”

“...”

“Thank you. This has been very enlightening indeed. Pray pardon my rude interruption of your duties.”

* * *

It was one of these rare hunts he had not been able to do on his own. Surprisingly enough it had been familiar faces that had ended up on the same task as him, but Ignis would have sought these three after finishing up anyway. It had been three days since he and Talcott had returned to Lestallum and neither of his fellow Dreamers had been on their own for long enough to ask them to meet him eventually. But this was perfect, even though Cor had initially been with Iris and Gladio, with the girl leading the group. Once she saw Ignis looking at the other three almost pleadingly once the creature had fallen, she had grabbed her brother’s arm.

“Gladio, let’s go back home. There’s something I wanted to show Frey.”

Two birds with one stone – the Amicitia siblings would be gone, and Aranea’s son would not have to spend more hours than necessary on his own. He was still grounded, technically.

Eventually they settled on a Haven they knew was nearby, and while Prompto attempted to start a campfire so they would at least not freeze out here, Aranea furrowed her eyebrows.

“Hey, no offence, but like… anyone else feel like they’re in a bad deja vu?”

Prompto looked up when he failed to start a fire. “Huh? Whaddaya mean?”

Ignis crossed his arms and hummed from where he sat. “I noticed it as well. This looks peculiarly familiar, although it most likely is merely a coincidence. A campfire, slightly elevated but surrounded by trees – trees that grow in the dark. The smell is familiar as well; was that the plant you retrieved from outer Duscae that had adapted rapidly in the last thirty or so years?”

Aranea shrugged with a sigh. “You can’t see it, but there’s this softly glowing bush a couple steps away from here. It’s indeed a midnight amaranth. The very same plant that we brought from outer Duscae. I had no idea they grew up to here in the wild nowadays.”

“It has been dark for quite a while, and what has not suffocated yet under the lack of light flourishes outside.” Cor drummed his fingers against the stone ground. “Well, you’ve got us on our own. What is it that you wanted?”

He had explained what had been left in the tomb to Talcott, as much as he would have preferred not to. It seemed hilariously out of context, and it was nearly impossible that anyone but Ardyn himself had left it in this place. Ardyn was, Ignis surmised after a while, also the person to have brought his brother’s rapier to the Blademaster across the canyon. There were not exactly many people who would have done something like that, let alone have found the place to begin with.

Ignis tilted his head.

“As you know, Talcott and I found the Tomb of the Founder.” He reached into his small bag that he carried with him always, and tossed the contents on the ground between all of them. A long pause began right after that, with none of them moving much. Even the Daemons that haunted the landscapes seemed to pause for a good moment.

Eventually Aranea’s voice broke a little as she let out a confused laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“I am not. Whatever Ardyn did to it, it survived the ages quite well.”

Every group that travelled had to have a log of some sort, mostly in the event that someone died and they had to return to the capital. Ignis remembered having written parts of it towards the end with ever the uneasy hand as they waited for Ardyn to recover from the strain of healing. Waited as they pretended they were not fully aware of what was going on. Prompto was in fact the only person who never had their hands on said travel journal, but even then he had heard about it. He had most likely been involved in taking it from Ardyn once they had apprehended him.

“It does indeed… look like it did back then, even if the memory is… fuzzy at best.”

“You’re fucking _kidding._ You’ve got to be. That can’t be the same--”

“It is, Aranea. Don’t deny it.”

It was Prompto who eventually leaned forward. “No, I remember it being taken alongside the rest of… Lord Ardyn’s belongings.”

Ignis tilted his head slightly. “I found a report dating back to the Builder’s time, shortly after the Founder’s demise. In other words, shortly after Lord Izunia’s death and Prince Emil’s ascension to the throne. It reports a notebook going missing at around the time. According to Talcott, the latter parts of that journal are not written by the same people who first wrote it – they are dated much later. About 25 or so years later.”

Somewhere in the distance they could hear something heavy beating equally heavy wings. They knew that winged Behemoths existed nowadays but they had thankfully managed to avoid as many encounters with them as they could – they stayed away from light and populated regions. If the same held true for every other country on Eos they did not know, Aranea herself avoided steering her airships into swarms of Daemons or anything large enough to fly.

“While Talcott was surprised by seeing our names in there, he quickly moved on with it and with my help translated what was in there. It would seem that after Pacis, Animosa, Vigilis and Ardyn two more people wrote in there. One was near unreadable even by modern standards, written with an extremely shaky hand. The other was clear and neatly written. Given that the second without a doubt was Emil Lucis Caelum, we can all but assume that the other parts were by Izunia himself. What little Talcott managed to get were things about how even though he was following a divine decree they all but called him murderer, and he agreed with all of that. How even the unfortunate fool born only to die against Ardyn or die to bring back light would rightfully hate him. It ends abruptly saying something about having seen Titan and seeing… a ghost of some sort. I assume it was Ardyn.”

He stood up.

“The second one is objectively more interesting. Perhaps not for us, but for historians. Talcott himself was more than elated to read about it. It states the procedure that Izunia utilised in an attempt to… purge the Starscourge. Not out of Eos, but to save the lives of the chosen few. As you know it failed and thusly bound the subjects to the earth until the last remnants of the Scourge and crystalline magic that binds them vanishes in an all-out attempt to save the planet – or bring it to ruin. I can see you are not interested in the finer machinations of magic, so I will get to the point: Izunia used a technique similar to Ardyn’s, merely using the crystal as catalyst. The reason it backfired is that Bahamut simply did not want him to succeed.”

“Wait.” It was Prompto, who had also stood up and was now shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You mean to tell me the reason all my former comrades are stuck down there is not because Lord Izunia completely and utterly botched something – they are down there because the Draconian… just didn’t want the Founder to succeed?”

“What I am saying is: Noctis, when he returns, will either die in battle against Ardyn, which would be the most disgusting waste of a life yet – or he will defeat the elder Healer and become a Healer himself, even if it is not long-lived. _That_ is what the Mark of Royalty promises. One of the Lucians will become a Healer. That’s what the Mark of Royalty is called; _Promise of_ _Mending._ ”

Aranea raised a hand. “And the other Marks of Royalty?”

“ _Promise of Serenity_ and _Promise of_ _Equality_ _,_ Tenebrae and Niflheim respectively. Whereas ours, much like any other Dreamer’s, is the _Promise of Dreaming._ What exactly they mean Emil merely speculates, but he assumed that Tenebrae would have its hands in restoring peace and smiting the Accursed, whereas Niflheim’s role would remain ambiguous until the playing field would be revealed. He claims that he figures that whoever will have that particular Mark will either side with the Lucis Caelums as equal – or they go down like a common Daemon by the time or even before the sun rises again. We do know what happened now, though.”

They all paused.

“It won’t have much of an effect, if any at all. Knowing this is all I ever desired, and I am more than happy to finally have an answer. Whether you care or not matters little, but. Well. I found it. I found what I was looking for. All that’s left for me is to feel the sun rise and then it is all over and done.”

* * *

“I’m not burying you alive, Ignis. Nor am I going to let you call life off immediately once the sun rises. I do not know him, nor do I truly know his opinion on it, but I really do believe that Prince Noctis… pardon, King Noctis, would not want you to waste away.”

“...”

“I didn’t say anything at the Haven yesterday because the other two were there, and I know you and Prompto don’t get along well and Cor’s your elder. Hell, I’m your elder technically. But anyway. Losing someone you’re close to, someone you perhaps even love with every fibre of your being hurts, it hurts like fucking hell. But you can’t just give up.”

“Aranea--”

“No. No giving up even if you survive past the dawn. You know Frey would never let me live it down if his Uncle Iggy wasted away before his eyes with me not doing anything. So consider this your butt-kicking. No giving up.”

“… Heh. I’ll… I’ll try. I think. Maybe.”

“If you need space, take it. That’s why I vanished after all. But afterwards come back in one piece and we can sort it out. ‘Course, that doesn’t apply if you and the other two die in the final battle. Then it’ll be up to the old-timer and me to clean up this mess. But for now, no giving up.”

“Dawn’s closer than we all think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special shoutout to jonphaedrus amd thetealord. i hope youre ready for having your heads smashed open like a coconut bc i remembered whats standing downstairs and i started crying  
> its 2:30am and im crying over Plastic Man in the Box


	26. Night Eternal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you guys know these extremely lucky streaks and then something just CRASHES AND BURNS?  
> well the thing that crashed and burned was.... our internet connection and phone line. "rare server side errors" my ass, how did it happen to us TWICE IN A ROW?
> 
> anyway.

He roused the Infernian with an inferno.

It was foolish to do do, given the Infernian’s hellish temperament. But Ardyn was getting sick of this charade, and thus did what he had always been best at – being a pain in the neck. Eventually the god manifested with a demonic growl and a wave of heat that easily dwarfed the magical bonfire Ardyn had started in the middle of Insomnia. Said bonfire sputtered and vanished when the Infernian took the stage; even though the Astral was still recovering from his defeat at Bahamut’s hands all these years ago. There were signs of Scourge on the recovering body, and Ardyn merely let out a snarl in return for the growl.

It wasn’t like the Accursed even needed to speak. He quite frankly stopped giving a damn about it and merely wanted to start the final round, king against king instead of bothering with the player who controlled the black pieces on this chessboard.

“How long do you intend to keep me?”

“ _Two thousand years, what matter a few more?”_

“They damn well matter! Your opponent is stalling for time – and it’s driving me mad! Madder than ever!”

“ _Then let it out on creation instead of the creators.”_

With that the Infernian vanished and left the black king unattended for.

Ardyn dug his fingers into his face and dragged. Any other person would have stopped at the digging thing due to the sheer pain, but Ardyn did not stop until his entire face was bleeding. Black blood, fitting for the black king. He wondered if Noctis would just bleed light by the time he awoke again – it certainly would be torture enough from Bahamut’s side after hundreds of years of slow death and decay.

Eventually he simply limped off to the Citadel. He’d watched the city grow and grow, and with every expansion the building had increased in size as well. Most employees lived there or in close quarters not too far away from it. Apparently his future opponent once lived in such an apartment complex as well, the one furthest away from the Citadel.

He kicked a Daemon away with his foot.

How long would Bahamut continue stalling for time? He had no idea, and the mere thought nearly drove him into a hysteric fit. When he threw open the doors to the Citadel, all he could think about was how much longer it would take for Noctis to return. He nearly lost himself to blind rage – but then he heard a soft scuttling sound.

“Out. All of you, out.”

Daemons normally did not follow the Accursed. They sometimes even went as far as attacking him whenever they felt like he was not going to put up much of a fight after a fit or the like. But ever since darkness fell, first in Niflheim and then the rest of Eos, they started following his orders. First it had only been the smaller, less intelligent ones. But now, half a year into darkness, even human-sized Daemons were following his every command. Droves of these now hurried out of the Citadel, untouched in its pristine state of destruction ever since the night Insomnia fell. Thankfully there was nothing left here, and all they had done was bring further disarray into the already ruined paperwork, and perhaps moved some of the debris around. But otherwise the place looked the same as it had the day he had marched in only to find the elder Nox Fleuret sibling lying on the ground in a room further upstairs. It had all worked into the plan, but Ardyn had not thought that the foolish royal would live as long as he had. The Oracle herself on the other hand…

There was no use crying over spilled blood. Much less blood he had spilled himself, willingly, knowingly.

The last handful Daemons left the room, and the heatwave vanishing outside told him that even the last trace of the Infernian had similarly vanished.

This was going to take a long time.

* * *

Most people had no idea what to make of Elemancy. In fact, only a handful people know how to handle Elemancy at all, and out of these families all would die out before long. Only the Lucis Caelums bound the three major elements and unleashed them at leisure, although modern kings and queens were objectively worse at it than the older ones. Noctis used it downright clumsily, which might have something to do with his comparatively young age, but he was clumsy anyway. Just ten generations ago the queen had been much more skilled with it than Mors, Regis and Noctis together. Ardyn was quite certain that even Izunia, who had never been one for brute force, would have easily pulverised the so-called Chosen King in less than a minute.

It was humiliating in several ways, but Ardyn couldn’t even find anything in himself than a hoarse laugh. It echoed sadly in the hills and scared several birds that had rested in the trees. Most cattle had perished if it had not been brought to safety by people, but birds remained nearly untouched by Daemons. Perhaps not by the Scourge, but Daemons normally avoided hunting birds. There was much easier prey for amusement around than a jumpy little songbird after all.

He sat down on the pulsing vein of energy that ran through the ground. Modern Lucis Caelums had to rely on crystallised manifestations of the elements to draw them out – mostly around Havens – but if he but wanted to he could have easily made this entire vein of lightning energy bend to his very will. It would have been so easy to simply turn Lestallum into ash and leave naught but cinders and a handful terrified survivors to fend for themselves in eternal darkness. Had Ifrit not suggested he do something like this to quell his rage and impatience?

There was no point in a quick death. Humanity would refuse to go down until Eos itself breathed out its remaining energies; not a single person on this forsaken planet would stop until the planet around them turned to decay and despair.

Eos did not decay. Far from it.

All those plants fascinated him. Not because they were pretty to look at, although there was a certain allure to the gentle gleam most, if not all of the darkness-adjusted plants gave off. No, Ardyn’s interest was based on something far more complicated: their medicinal value. Some of them looked like mutated herbs that he had long since believed lost to time. Two thousand years of evolution, and now the old ones resurfaced in the dark? Had they hibernated? Had their properties changed, or was the flower he heard scientist around Lestallum call ‘midnight amaranth’ still poisonous in large quantities? Was it still useful for a herbal infusion that could cool a person to their very core, as if the Glacian had kissed them on the lips and shattered their body temperature as if it was naught but an expensive vase meeting a very excited child?

He wasn’t going to try. The other ingredients were long gone or had lost most of their powers by now. If being taught basic medicine to avoid having to use his magical healing power for every minor fever he came across had one good point to, it was that it taught Ardyn to avoid unnecessary deaths. His body was taking longer and longer to recover from fatal incidents, as if it had used up all its energies against the bullet Prompto had fired at him in Gralea had sucked the rest of that infernal Scourge out of him.

That was naturally not the case, but he knew what it meant. It meant they were making ready for disabling long enough should Noctis indeed win against him. Instead of remaining unmoving and then jerking back to consciousness as he had done in the last hundreds of years, they were going to let his body dissolve like the Daemons that infested this planet. He had never had to reconstruct an entire body. Even back before his powers corrupted it had taken him but a few hours to regenerate a lost limb through sheer concentration alone. And as Daemon he had had to reconstruct entire pieces of him regularly. More than once his fatal incidents had taken out entire chunks of his body.

Would he even be capable of rebuilding an entire body? Or would they trap him in that infernal empty space they called the in-between that was not overseen by Carbuncle, waiting for the time Noctis would willingly sacrifice himself to end the Accursed and bring back the light?

Though lacking in strength, Noctis certainly had enough heroic values for that. If only Regis had not taught the boy to enjoy his life – it made the already bad fate that awaited someone that young somehow even worse.

Medicinal value or no; Ardyn stomped down the flowers he had been watching for the past hour as he felt the energy underneath him flow. There was no point in brooding over something that had been a truth since even before he had been born. The black knight would be chosen and left on the field for ages, until he was older than time itself. The white king would be a young, fresh one, to represent a new start that would sweep away the past mistakes that the black knight had made.

He almost felt sorry for the midnight amaranths as he stomped off.

It just were flowers anyway. There were hundreds of them. Hundreds and billions, all scattered across the countries of Eos that waited in hibernation until the King of Light would either win or lose against the Accursed. Just as Bahamut and Ifrit had decided to very long ago, before the Draconian even decided to strike down the Infernian.

* * *

Gods did not die. Their physical forms perished, surely, but spiritually it was impossible to kill a god. It made him wonder during his early days of being the Accursed. Had he somehow, through absorbing the Scourge and letting it flow in his system without giving it enough power to completely overcome him, become a god?

The Scourge had killed lesser gods, the minor Astrals. Those had all perished long before his time – most of them, anyway. Only a chosen few Carbuncles survived, and anything else was long since but a vague story. Ending the Scourge would not bring back the perished minor Astrals that had liberally mingled with mortals. There would be no Phoenixes circling the skies and heralding the sun and rebirth; there would be no Syldra helping the people of Accordo rebuild. There would be no Sylphs dancing through the forests in Tenebrae. Zegnautus Keep would not suddenly turn into the fabled impregnable fortress Alexander. None of them would return, just as the dead would remain dead. Even a large amount of Dreamers most likely would never return.

“If you would be so kind as to remove your weapon from my arm – this certainly is not a good way to start a conversation.”

“...”

Ardyn had naturally noticed it. It was rare to have all four of them on the field at the same time; thus he started watching and listening a little closer. Even only in Niflheim some of the most successful survivors had had a Mark, often in the most obvious places. Ardyn was quite certain that the majority of the country, or Gralea itself had somehow managed to hide themselves away just in time. It was more a bunker than an open city like Lestallum, but people would remain safe.

“Last time I met you you were most careful about covering it up somehow.”

“Last time we met there was still daylight and no reason to be hostile. How am I to ascertain that you are not going to sic any of these Daemons around here on me? And do not feign ignorance, Ardyn, I noticed that they avoided attacking and are still under your command to not touch either of us, somehow.”

“The Farseeing Eye, as cautious as ever.”

“What do you want, Ardyn? You deliberately sought me out.”

The sunrise at dawn. That was what this Dreamer lived for, had been reborn over and over, time and time again. Dawn never felt further, and considering how he was bristling as he slowly removed the weapon from Ardyn’s arm and wiped the black blood off, he most likely understood the same.

What felt like ages ago Verus had been the one who had sought out Ardyn, and the Accursed hated admitting that he had indeed been looking for the Dreamer. As former priest of Carbuncle in a time the minor Astrals lived but perished to the first bouts of Scourge, he most likely still had some information retained. Apparently Dreamers that spent millennia in the business started forgetting all but the important things to make space for the newer memories.

“I want information.”

“You know as well as I do that Dreamers lose memories over time. I cannot promise I can give you what you want.”

“I am fully aware of that danger, but I would rather have a more or less pleasant conversation with a man I hunted with a handful lifetimes ago than have another one-sided conversation with the Infernian.”

He saw the other man’s eyes go wide. “The… Infernian.”

“The Six cannot perish even if their physical form is slain. The only way to fully destroy, say, the Infernian, would be to destroy every ounce of his being, down to the spiritual existence. Full erasure. Only a god with more power than the Six could do that – and as you know as well as I do, there are none above the Six watching over Eos.”

A long moment of silence before Ardyn gestured into the vague direction of the Daemons circling the area. With a loud hissing noise – Verus flinched – they vanished into the eternal night. Then Ardyn gestured at his conversational partner with his wounded arm. Verus did not flinch again and instead stared unmoving into the Accursed’s face despite the fine splatters of blood on the right side of his own face.

“There. They’re gone now.”

“...”

Indeed nothing but the silence of the night eventually covered the area he had attempted to corner the hunter in. Verus on the other hand had struck like lightning, a movement that did not betray his age. He must have been about the same age as Cor Leonis, if not older by a maximum of five years. It was nothing like the nearly clumsy hunter he had worked with when aforementioned Cor had been called Gaius, but what that incarnation had lacked in sheer physical strength he had often evened out with the sharp wit and sarcasm of a Dreamer long in the business.

“I don’t want you to hand me a Carbuncle skeleton. I neither want you to summon one for me so I can go on a tirade at the creature for all the misfortune it brought onto me even before the gods decided now was a good moment to turn the Healer into the black king on the Infernian’s side and let him wait until the Draconian chose his white king. No, nothing of the like. I am merely curious about the process of… ending.”

“You mean when we either give up, fail to meet our objectives and fall into despair, or complete our objective and finally are released into the after instead of the in-between? Really, it is quite simple.”

Ardyn shook his head. “No. The process. What happens when you, say, meet your objective?”

“The Mark burns out. The contours vanish and it truly looks like a birthmark at that point until the day we finally die again. Nothing else happens after that and we pass on like anyone else. … Okay, no, we don’t pass on like anyone else, I suppose.”

“Do enlighten me.”

“Do I look like I know what truly happens? I know what was taught to novices, the base of the belief that Dreamers truly are allowed to pass on – but if I knew what truly happened I would most definitely not stand here with your blood on my weapon in a night that seemingly never ends. I’d be in the afterlife.”

Ardyn rolled his eyes, which most likely was obviously visible in the dark. The last time he had come across a mirror in Insomnia he had stared at it for a second only to realise that the softly glowing eyes were his own instead of some random Daemon’s. If it truly was as visible as he believed, Verus certainly did not react to what a politician might have called a sign of aggression.

“What happens is, if the original so desires… all other incarnations are released as well.”

“Oh?”

“Say, I pass on with my objective complete. I choose to release all my other selves. You’d find the one in front of you, but also the one from a hundred and fifty or so years ago. You’d find all of them, down to the original priest. As far as the original learned back in the day, the memories go with whomever made them – the current hunter would remember eternal darkness, whereas the train hunter would keep these, and the original with what remains of his. The other choice would let me, the current hunter, pass on with my memories intact instead of splintered across the people who made them.”

“And which one do the gods – Carbuncle, Bahamut, whoever – ask? Who makes the choice? One incarnation speaking for all of them seems rather… unfair.”

The hunter shrugged. “The original and the last incarnation decide, or so I heard. The original’s choice matters because it is because of them that the others exist. The last incarnation’s choice matters equally because they are the peak, the one who saw what the original wanted come to its conclusion. The in-between people are just that – in-between. Much like the, how did you so eloquently put it as Ciel, campfire sessions. They are a part of the afterlife, but at the end of the day it matters not to the real afterlife.”

Ardyn furrowed his eyebrows.

“And the burnt-out Mark?”

“You bear one yourself. Granted, not the way a Mark of the Dreamer would burn out, but burned regardless. That’s just a sign that you broke with your Carbuncle and your desires; a last incarnation’s all but turns into a true birthmark of little importance. Only the Dreamer themselves knows what it once looked like.”

The Accursed made a step forward and reached out. He dug one of his fingers into the Dreamer’s neck. For but a split second he could feel the heartbeat growing faster before it slowed down again – while he tried to look fearless he was most certainly scared.

“By all means, that does look burned to me.”

Verus grabbed his hand and removed it from his neck, then covered it with the other hand. “That’s just washed out, but burned.”

“Pray tell, what is the difference?”

“I could joke about age, but no. It had to do with the Carbuncle that stamped that Mark on me. The reason it looks different than the ones your servants bear is… The Carbuncle that granted them a Mark lives. The one that granted me mine does not. Swept away by the Scourge that all but erased the minor Astrals from the countrysides and instead left them on the pages of history as footnote.”

He let the hunter go with a warning. This conversation never happened as far as both Ardyn and Verus were concerned, but if the hunter let out just a word, the slightest of hints, Ardyn would turn him into the hunted. He left it at that.

Gods that were doomed to oblivion. Sometimes he did wonder what exactly a minor Astral had been, how they had attained their status and how they had been the first ones to go. But he had never thought about that in detail as Healer, and once the Astrals pretended he did not exist and did not understand their language, he had started wondering. They couldn’t have been animals, there were no speaking ones.

Perhaps he would have to rouse the Infernian another day once more.

* * *

“I am not here to do any harm.”

“...”

“I am but here to ask – is this truly the place? Your presence suggests such, Messenger, but would it not be wiser to find his supporters, his friends?”

“...”

“Waking all on his lonesome in a place he does not know in a world without light; are the gods truly so unforgiving even to their so-called Chosen that they would leave him to see this by himself after years of absence?”

“...”

“Oh, so you say. But pray tell, will the failed subjects truly find this place within the time limit?”

“...”

“On the island already? You Messengers do not mess around, whether you are human or… canine.”

“...”

“Psh. I solemnly swear I shall not put a hand on either your precious King of the Stone or the two marching towards us. Two out of three I might get if Bahamut botches his last moves across the board. And if I get the lesser pieces and the king, I get the third in a swooping victory for the black side. Unless the white king does as Bahamut wills him, my good friend Umbra.”

* * *

He felt no guilt. Nothing at all.

The fact that the Daemons that had been people once had escaped was a mistake on his part, but one he could easily part with now that he thought it over. It had been rather amusing to watch Cor and the Amicitias struggle against so simple a creature, so base a construct. It would have been much better to use them to rile the _King of the Stone_ as the Messengers called him up more. Noctis needed to fight with the intend to kill and not as half-heartedly as he had fought before Altissia. After Altissia he had fought with grief and confusion. What Ardyn needed was _rage_. Righteous rage and the desire to change the world for the better.

Noctis had shown precious little of that. Ironically enough the ones who showed exactly what Ardyn needed were his former retainers and Noctis’ other subjects. Perhaps not with physical strength alone, but certainly with enough mental strength to defy the dark and the Daemons.

Towards the end Ravus Nox Fleuret had found that righteous rage. Before his death he had finally found the strength to admit his mistakes to himself and tell the turning Emperor Aldercapt as much. And though Noctis himself never once saw that last display of acceptance, his right-hand brawn had seen it and described it to his left-hand brain. Gladiolus and Ignis had forwarded that information as they went looking for the Niff reject in the abandoned and run-down Zegnautus Keep.

Whether Noctis would find that selfsame strength was up to Bahamut and whatever happened during Noctis’ stay in the crystal.

Which dragged on.

Another inferno roused the Infernian, one too many times in the last nine years. Ardyn sidestepped the plume of fire that then missed him barely. It certainly singed his scarf and hair, and he let out an annoyed sigh when he heard the familiar growl of a furious Infernian.

“Trust me, I am about as happy about this as you are! But there is something I desire to know and I shall not take _‘take it out on creation instead of the creator’_ for an answer again!”

The Daemons in Insomnia bristled, a shudder that went through the entire city and through Ardyn much like anything else. If there were living beings other than Daemons then they felt the shift in mood as well.

“Oh, do not look at me so. Once I have my answer I shall let you prepare your rousing, enlightening and more than _heart-warming_ speech for the King of the Stone. Hells above and beyond, it is not even about that brat Bahamut chose to employ. ‘Tis a simple question.”

He had been effectively dancing around fire near the entire time he had been speaking. Ardyn could not die, but he would prefer not having to regenerate for a few months – a few months during which Noctis could easily awaken and storm the city with either an army or all on his own. If Ardyn had to guess he would take the people he began his journey with; something Ardyn would have done himself if said people were not on Noctis’ side or the Infernian.

A small ball of flame hit him square in the face. Ardyn barely felt pain, but the searing sensation as Ifrit’s fire all but burned away his skin was less than pleasant.

“Oh, screw you too. One question, your moody Highness, and then you can get yourself some younger, more willing test subjects for your flesh-melting antics in preparation of meeting Bahamut’s chosen child.”

It was rare for the Infernian to not immediately leave in a huff. When Ifrit had once reached out to Ardyn there was naught of that alliance left. They were on the same side by any means, but Ardyn was far from having received the Infernian’s blessing – much unlike Noctis and the rest of the Six. Another reason why Ardyn was most unwilling to use the ace he kept in the back of his hand. Or rather, _aces_. It would have been more than easy to turn the former king, the Oracle and the Glaive against Noctis, turning it into what others would have deemed a _fair fight_. After all the prince and his men outnumbered Ardyn four to one. Along with these the numbers would have been even.

But Ardyn was more than unwilling. He would have not felt the slightest bit of guilt if he did so – neither Amicitia nor Nox Fleuret had exactly been failures, and using them even through an accident had been highly amusing – but he somehow felt unwilling to use them regardless.

The Infernian raised the temperature, and Ardyn heard something nearby sizzling. Most likely some leftovers, some unattended body that had somehow avoided turning into a Daemon post-mortem.

“Just one.”

“ _So ask.”_

“Minor Astrals. They cannot by any means have been there from the very beginning, unlike you and yours – yes, yes I _know_ of the divine break, please, do not put me to the _torch_ , the last person who tried doing so all but went mad in the last years of his life.” The flames that had surged up next to him sizzled down once more. “All I desire to know, were they… mortal once?”

* * *

The statue sparked underneath his hand and he withdrew it near immediately. The spark had been red, much like the colour his magic had turned not soon after his blood had turned black. But the spark did not mean that the statue would stir once more. It remained as still as it had been ever since the night Insomnia fell had ended. While the Daemons Niflheim had dropped to wreak havoc in the city had disappeared with the sunrise as Daemons did, the statues yet remained moving, even just slowly for quite a while yet.

Ardyn had not been watching it, but after checking several reports back in the capital it seemed that the fabled Old Wall had come to a standstill the same moment the member of the Kingsglaive that had won over the Lucii had breathed his last.

The man looked wholly unremarkable. Nothing like the outstandingly gorgeous Oracle, or the worn down yet regal former king. How precisely he had managed to sway the unmoving former rulers of Lucis that never once fully bent to the will of the bearer of the ring eluded Ardyn to this day. It was not like he could raise Nyx Ulric from the dead and ask him – while the Daemons he had made of people in the past retained a sense of self they always realised that they were not supposed to _be_. Ravus Nox Fleuret had, through the instinctual fighting every living being in the vicinity – Noctis and the other three – all but _begged_ for death as time went on. Even the other creations, all above Clarus Amicitia, had started doing that after a while. The more sense of self they retained, the sooner they would start begging to be put down.

Ardyn kicked the statue. It did not move, naturally.

Around these the slightest trace of magic remained; traces of the magic that had risen them from their slumber the night the city had fallen. It wasn’t a familiar pattern by any means. Less refined than, say, King Regis’ magical structure. The dead king had always used magic sparingly and intelligently. He had perfected defensive magic; something that neither Nyx Ulric now his son were keen on using. Noctis was statistically speaking weaker than Regis, though he was nimbler and swifter at creating magic. He was much faster and much more fluent while warping. What Noctis lacked in sheer strength he made up for in speed; just as Regis had always evened out his lack of strength with both predictive and reactive moves.

That Nyx Ulric on the other hand…

It felt and had looked much wilder, a lot more daring. Where past kings and queens had been conserving and vigilant, Nyx Ulric had fought with the fury of a hundred Behemoths. Perhaps it had been because his time had been limited. Knowing the end was near usually turned men into animals, especially if they were fighting something or someone that threatened their home.

The dying man had all but wheezed out that he had done it for the future, claimed that Ardyn would have not understood it, and gone beyond the veil not even the Accursed could reach.

The city lay desolate and empty, only the sound of Daemons echoing through the streets that had once been all but overflowing with life. Whatever future Nyx Ulric had claimed to have fought, to have _died for_ , this could not have been it. It seemed like a perfect caricature, and Ardyn’s face stretched into a tired smile.

Somewhere in the distance, in the ominous darkness, he could spot light. Even campfires carried their lights far in the dark, but the sparkle of actual light carried for miles and miles. In the distance was a strange shine on the horizon. If people did not know any better it would have been more than easy to mistake it for the first gentle signs of dawn. But it was simply Lestallum in the distance, bright and loud and surprisingly full of life despite enemies living closer together than ever before. Not too far away he could make out the lights of the second bastion here in Lucis – Hammerhead.

He had nearly expected the people of Lucis to defend Galdin Quay to the death. They had remained there as long as they could have, until the last lights had finally died down. Ironically enough it had been the pesky reporter called Dino that had saved most of the people in Galdin Quay. Quite many of those that had huddled there as long as there had been light had died the moment the lights went out, but a greater number than anticipated had survived because of the bold man. Ardyn had not expected this the slightest. He had figured that people would perish in a much greater number than they actually had.

Which meant that people had changed. In the old days, even back when he found his three wayward retainers in a village full of people afflicted with the Scourge, they would have flocked together and died like sheep in the middle of a pack of wolves. In fear, feeling alone despite being so many. Helplessly.

Now they were flocked once more, but even as he made yet another spark dance across the statue he wondered if they would go down without a fight. A great number of people had become hunters alongside the ones that had fled from all over Eos. At least half, if not more of Lestallum could fight Daemons. And fighting Daemons was but one step away from being able to eliminate a human after someone’s life. Even if Ardyn arrived with a myriad of Daemons with murderous intent he did not doubt that people would fight back until there was nothing left.

The Lucii had always been said to be the protectors of the future – but mortals were shackled by the past and unable to face what was yet to come.

Nyx Ulric had passed their trials, something that only those of royal blood allegedly could. But much as Ravus Nox Fleuret had demonstrated but a few hours earlier, there were royals who could not step beyond the bars of the past; yet there were common folk who could.

The spark bounced off the statue and down into the destroyed street. There was a damaged part that looked quite a lot like the statue had slain one of Besithia’s prized Diamond Weapons before it deactivated in the light of early dawn.

Ardyn warped off his perch.

There were things he needed to do.

* * *

“ _...”_

“Well? You permitted me one question. Where is your answer, Infernian?”

“ _One must wonder where thou hast gathered such information.”_

“Drop the mighty holy act. Where I got my information matters not, and much like any mortal bug scuttling in your mighty dust I shall go pester something or someone else if you do not answer me.”

* * *

One day, sooner rather than later, Eos would run out of what the common man called ‘Phoenix Down’. Without divine powers the common restoratives would be little less than concoctions that were sweeter than necessary. Apparently people nowadays usually used these to force their bodies to stay awake longer than necessary, to regain focus and the like. Ardyn never quite understood the allure of these things, but without the crystal these things would most definitely lose their curing powers. Much like plants that changed over time, except it would be a sudden change. If the people were not warned in advance, at least a hundred would have to die before official warnings were given to the general populace. After that these restoratives would simply be _energy drinks_ , and then just two or three generations later people would have forgotten that they had ever had the power to weave broken tissue back together.

Phoenix Downs on the other hand would fade into a myth rather than something people came across in the wild every so often. Desolate temples found all over Eos often offered the glimmering and shining remains of these famous minor Astrals – much like the Astral themselves the cults surrounding them had died out with them.

But one day there would be no glimmering feathers caught in a shrub, no sudden red flare in the night as a light brushed past it. Then the last minor Astral known to people these days would have truly perished.

He let the tuft go. Here in the stagnant air it simply twirled back to the ground and remained there, not even shimmering the slightest. Ardyn had no need for feathers other than sentimental value, but the only feathers he would have liked to have would have been that of a black Chocobo. But these creatures were nearly extinct, much like the Phoenixes before them – although a Chocobo was far from being a minor Astral.

He had made certain the hatchling Noctis and his friends had saved was still alive. Much to his surprise it had been, and it was growing despite the dark. Whoever that Wiz was, he certainly knew his birds. For a few months early into darkness Ardyn had watched him from afar as he took care of the birds somewhere in the outer reaches of Lestallum. The man and his employees had moved on to taking care of more than just the Chocobos, and together with fellow breeders from all over the world they had managed to retain a stable population of cattle and other animals in the city.

Though he thought precious little of the people in the city still he had to admit their resilience was admirable. Back when he had travelled his kingdom people had succumbed to the slightest bout of illness, the Scourge itself notwithstanding. These people had revered him as a saviour because thanks to him they did not have to die to something simple like a cold. Nowadays people barely cared about illnesses unless they were severe.

Did those people _truly_ need another Healer to suffer in their stead? Ardyn was well aware of what Bahamut was going to do to Noctis. Getting rid of the Scourge all but meant taking it along with him – a self-sacrificing Healer who took what tormented the people and died in their stead. And though the days of his powers being used for good were long gone, Ardyn had healed an injury in the past. Why, of all people, had he decided to use his miraculous powers on _Cor_?

He didn’t know. He had just done it without thinking about it too much.

And now that he thought about it all he found was that he wanted to speak to them. Just once, without any of them drawing weapons on him. Without immediately playing the role he had gotten so used it it was all but his true self at that point. He was the Accursed and they were followers of the Chosen – once upon a time they hadn’t been and he hadn’t been.

Perhaps he could find them. Just once.

* * *

“ _Pray tell, Accursed – what is your purpose?”_

“Answers.”

“ _I cannot give them.”_

“Just listen to my question, then. I know theoretically I have all but spent my opportunities to ask like a civilised person – lest we forget, I took one of your earthly existences.”

“ _It has been long since you spoke sensible, Accursed. Do go on.”_

“The Infernian all but scowled and told me to go to hell – which I would personally love to, but alas you and yours do not allow me to pass on in peace – but it is good fortune indeed that I ran into you here. You see--”

“ _If it is about the Chosen, be warned, I cannot and will not answer.”_

“If I wanted to know anything about your pet project I would have gone and asked the Messenger that kept watch of where he would wake. No, my question is unrelated to your perverse game of chess I just so happen to be a vital piece in.”

“ _...”_

“Minor Astrals.”

“… _What would you know about them? They are long dead – and the few that survive are of no consequence for you any longer. Carbuncles do not roam the earth freely; their numbers are much too diminished.”_

“No, nothing of the like. My question is, were they human once? They are not of the same divinity as you and yours are; they do not bear the same brand you put on me to make me but a relic of two thousand years that wishes to… destroy.”

“… _Are you prepared for whatever the answer might be, though? Are you truly, Accursed? The time has come ever closer with every second that ticks by; whatever knowledge you may gain will be wasted on one who soon will cease.”_

“Then waste it on me, just this once.”

* * *

Some things never changed. No matter how much Eos’ human population changed, some things never did.

And a group of people that merely adjusted to changes but never truly changed, were Dreamers. Hundreds and thousands of hunters with the name Verus, all hunting until they were overtaken and killed in the field, or until they succumbed to age or sickness.

Hundreds of women with an almost exotic hair colour and a strong will. Hundreds of men with brown hair and a nearly stoic determination. Hundreds of blonde men who usually felt like they didn’t belong but covered it with shining loud optimism. Hundreds of men who were cool and calculating to outsiders but rather warm and friendly to those that knew them.

Cor, Aranea, Ignis and Prompto could have been the exact same people he had gotten to know back when he had been mortal – they effectively were, all things considered. But while some things never changed, some did. There was an unspoken hostility in the air, and Ardyn revelled in it for a split second.

They feared him, hated him, wanted him gone. That was precisely what he had wanted, from the very first moment he realised what had happened to them and that the past would never truly let go of him.

Getting them out here had been anything but easy, and Ardyn was sort of relieved to actually see them. At first he had doubted they would even come after the most likely terrified report of a handful Niff hunters that had been intimidated and instructed to specifically get Leonis, Highwind, Scientia and Argentum out of the city to meet with him. Considering the nature of his message he had not thought anyone but Prompto and perhaps Aranea would have come, but seeing the Marshal and the Advisor alongside the Dragoon and the Sharpshooter was… comforting, somehow.

Ten years of darkness, and he felt the changes in the air. These four must have as well. But after the tenth anniversary of Eos falling into darkness had come and gone and no Chosen had risen from his slumber to bring back the light.

Even in Lestallum the spirits sunk in the week following that. There had almost been a brawl between a Tenebraen and a Niff, broken up by Prompto and Loqi in the last possible moment. People could have died – they were not joking around when stressed out and scared. Ardyn had watched it from a perch on top of a building with equal measures of amusement and disgust.

People changed.

People didn’t change.

He was incredibly tired of existing as something that people only spoke of in hushed voices. The Niffs called him the bane of the Aldercapt dynasty; the Tenebraens the murderer of Oracles; the Lucians did not even speak his name and instead spat out in disgust. The only ones that did not react to the name ‘Ardyn Izunia’ strongly were the Accordans – only citizens of Altissia reacted to him, and even those barely so.

He’d done it – Eos hated him. Those four despised every fibre of his being.

It was Aranea, ever the boldest of them, eventually put her hands on her hips and let out a hiss.

“You scared them half to death only for them to deliver a vague threat as far as they were concerned. I am more than surprised to see that they were not grievously harmed, _Your Highness._ What is that you want, Chancellor Izunia? Oh, beg pardon, Crown Prince Ardyn.”

He smiled at her warmly which only made her face screw up in disgust. “Simple curiosity.”

Although Ignis was blind Ardyn felt like this one of Noctis’ inner circle was staring right at, if not through him. “Simple curiosity would not have you going through the trouble of finding Niffs young enough to recognise you as Chancellor Izunia, yet not old and bold enough to attack you swinging wildly for all the family and friends they lost in the surge that turned half of Niflheim into Daemons and that forced the other half to go into hiding – where even more of them yet died.”

“That much is true, Ignis, but no. It is indeed curiosity; I require naught but… information, if you will.”

The four of them stuck their heads together, mistrust plain on their faces. It had been ten years, but even after all this time the one trembling the most was the youngest. Prompto Argentum had made certain there was someone between him and Ardyn and he remained somewhat behind the much taller Ignis or Cor. He couldn’t even laugh about it – he had been a servant of his brother, and this incarnation especially had suffered under Ardyn’s influence and own hand.

Aranea once more gestured when they split apart after their short but urgent discussion.

“We seriously doubt your claims. It has been two thousand years – we no longer owe you our allegiance. In fact these three are on your mortal enemy’s side, and I myself owe my allegiance to naught but gil and myself.”

That was a lie, no matter how smoothly Aranea spoke it. She had people she owed her allegiance to now. Biggs and Wedge, the rest of her former company. Much as she hated to admit it to herself she had started getting along with her dead mentor’s son. All those people she had befriended – and most importantly her son. And though most people paid it no mind it was clear to Ardyn that Ravus Nox Fleuret clearly should have been watched better during the slow fall of the empire. Not that it mattered in the long run. There were no male Oracles.

Just thinking about it made his arm itch strangely. Damned Lunafreya, tormenting him even ten years after her _most untimely_ demise. The dead should remain dead even if the living wanted to be as dead as they were.

Still, he nodded with a smile. “Very well. You four certainly like to pretend you are gods – these too never give information when one desires it.”

“We’re not saying we aren’t prepared to answer – what we doubt is the fact that you’ll let us go unharmed. Don’t think we’re from yesterday,” Cor’s voice was completely deadpan, “even if our backstory began there. Your message said that you would let us go, certainly. But in the event that you do not like whatever you get out of us, who is to say you will not do whatever you did to Ravus, Clarus, and many more people to us instead? Simply getting Ignis and Prompto here would do enough damage to all but ensure His Majesty Noctis would be driven by grief and rage and therefore… not prepared for a true fight.”

“Clever.” A long sigh. “But no – you will get your oath. I swear on all that remains holy to you and me, and to all things unholy. I will not lay as much as a finger on any of you. There will be no specifically bred and trained Daemons hunting you down once I left and you turned your backs on the direction I went.”

Once more they stuck their heads together. There was still a lot of uncertainty on their faces, but when they looked back at least the three former retainers looked a lot more determined than they had before.

“Very well. We are yours for...” Ignis smiled a devious grin, “… one night. No, not the eternal one. You have about three hours left before theoretically the sun would rise during this season in this part of Lucis. After that we’re leaving.”

That was more than enough time for what he wanted to know, but not enough for the other things he wanted to say. So, instead, he sat down right where he stood.

“The four of you feel it as well then, I figure?”

His former three simply nodded, but Prompto was staring somewhere else entirely.

“Good, good. That _certainly_ makes things easier. Which means after two thousand years of playing _tag_ it would seem that the game is coming to a close. Whoever wins we do not know yet, but perhaps we will _not_ have the pleasure of speaking again. And there are several things I have not said, and will not say. But first, a simple question. Are you four prepared for it?”

Prompto continued staring somewhere else, and it was Ignis who tilted his head. “Prepared for _what_ , Lord Ardyn? There are a great many things we have been prepared for since the first life we had had, back when we were not yet Dreamers.”

For once a light breeze went over this part of Lucis, and the glowing flowers on this clearing bent as the trees that somehow were still alive rustled. Some of them were losing leaves; brown, dry leaves. Apparently some of the plants were dying again, leaving only the strongest to survive – unless the light came back. Aranea mumbled something to Ignis, Cor and Prompto, and the three of them nodded at her.

Ardyn on the other hand shot them a grin. “Prepared for all of this to end. The Accursed and the endless night, but also your certainly enlightening cycle of death and rebirth. Prepared for the people to split and scatter, prepared to rebuild. Prepared for the _cost_ of all of it.”

Cor and Aranea remained as neutral as ever, but Ignis cringed when Ardyn mentioned ‘the cost’ and Prompto started frowning just a little before that.

“I sure am, Your Highness.” Unsurprisingly it was Aranea. “Got all these things I told Frey that I gotta show him. I’m more than able to help rebuild _and_ take care of him. It might’ve been a rat’s ass towards the end, but Niflheim’s my home. It’s Frey’s home. And we’re going back there when the light’s back. And I’ve been prepared for the end for… some time. And if the light does not return, I shall continue fighting for as long as I need to, across even more lives. Until the bitter end.”

She hadn’t been until but recently. There was a new determination on Aranea’s face one morning, a certain strength in her steps as she carried on with her duties, as she handed her son over to Iris because she had to make another trip to Niflheim for something that was found only there.

“I am as prepared as I’ll ever be. I did not survive the trials once and had gone there thrice only to bend over at the slightest change of plans. Light or eternal darkness, it changes very little. My purpose remains clear, my motives unchanged – I owe as much to the people who did not live as long as I have.”

Cor Leonis had managed to mend many broken relationships in the past. Ever since his injury had healed he had managed to find and reunite the scattered Crownsguard that was now technically under Gladiolus Amicitia’s command. But that man said that he lacked the experience in the field that his father and Cor had had before they had been given their positions, and thus only led the Crownsguard in name alone. It was Cor who commanded these men and women, it was Cor who watched the trainees. He made certain that people would never forget what they owed to the royal family, what lengths Mors, Regis and Noctis had gone to and would go to to make certain Lucis and Eos at large remained at peace or regained their peace.

“More or less. There are certain things I will have to come to terms with, but perhaps when having work of either restoring the Crown City or when working together with the population of Lestallum to keep living as we have in these past ten years… perhaps that will put my mind on something else. But even back when I was Alacris I more or less learned what it means, and I understood what the end would mean when I was Aestus. Truly, I do not think I will be any more or less prepared than I am on this day, in this very moment.”

Ignis would have to deal with a great many things, grief first and foremost if he lived past the day or night when Noctis either went and won back the light or died for nothing as the gods watched.

It was Prompto who did not answer for a long time, but before any of the people could ask he let out a sigh.

“I dunno. I don’t belong – never have, never will. When… all is done and the light is back, I’ll be as homeless as I have ever been. But – and that I realised – being stuck between two sides makes it easy to… build bridges. W-What Noctis cannot do in… in case he doesn’t… well. I’ll do it in his stead. The Niffs accept us now. They will accept any choices _we_ make. I know they will go back, but I will remain where I am. In Lucis. In _Insomnia_. That is where I belong – where I have always belonged, even if the blood is Niff this time around. No matter the royal I swore my allegiance to. Izunia does not live any longer, has not lived for centuries. I was never in _your_ service. And I did train as Crownsguard, but at the end of the day I am a commoner with only… friendly ties to royalty and the Crownsguard. But I am Lucian, from Insomnia. No matter the outcome.”

Ardyn nodded, and the four of them stuck their heads together one final time this night.

“And what about you then, Your Highness? Are you prepared?”

Another gust went across the clearing, and the glowing flowers bent once more. They were still alluring like nothing else in the dark safe for Lestallum and Hammerhead, a glowing reminder that midnight would eventually give way to the dawn.

“You ask the doomed. Sooner or later a Chosen, be it Noctis or another, will win against the dark. The Six will get their sacrifice, the mortals their light. But, as far as my role as Accursed is concerned – I am prepared.”

He left the things he never said unsaid. Some things were better left forgotten in the pages of history.

* * *

“He awoke.”

No answer, naturally. The dead never answered – only those that had turned into Daemons and managed to remain human did. Neither Iedolas Aldercapt nor Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Regis Lucis Caelum or Nyx Ulric answered. They were dead, though it had been a hard piece of work to undo the damage the Scourge had done to Aldercapt and the Lucii had done to Ulric. The tides were unforgiving but even they usually gave back what they took, as long as it was not a sunken city or a sunken ship. And thus had the tide returned Lunafreya eventually. Stealing a body from a makeshift grave was easy, and Ardyn had all but gleefully pulled the king he would have preferred fighting instead of his son who was now coming to Insomnia to take back what should be his. Nyx Ulric on the other hand had the pesky habit of catching fire every so often. The ancient magic had not been quelled – how, with the bearer of the ring dead by sunrise, in the midst of fighting? And Aldercapt…

Any other time he could have considered it a waste of what little of his powers remained. But it was more than necessary to fan the fire that certainly still burned in Noctis’ heart. Turning the dead back to their human form was something he had learned rather early during his travels, much to Cor Vigilis’ complaints. It was an unnecessary waste of power, the man had said but never once stopped Ardyn from doing so, just so people would have a body to grieve over. And Aldercapt had returned much like any other Daemon, and thus Ardyn had caught the wayward emperor.

The only one truly lost was Besithia, but Ardyn did not mind. Nobody but the MTs had anything to do with that man, outside of the people of Insomnia that had lost loved ones to his creations called Diamond Weapon.

What a terrible, terrible waste.

“He’s coming, can you believe it? After all the doubts, after all the fear, the needless cruelty. Despite trying to break him, despite trying to make his path another one – he comes.”

Again no answer.

A last night before either dawn would rise or the darkness once more swallow up the sky. But Ardyn knew the outcome.

“But will he win? Has he the heart? The gods’ favourite mistake is giving playthings a will, feelings, a soul. An unwilling white king, an unwilling black king. Truly, a chess game that lasted an eternity, and now the sentient pieces are about to face each other. One with rooks, the other without. And both more or less unwilling but yet prepared to do what is necessary. That is what you Oracles always prophesied, is it not, dearest Lunafreya?”

The crystal above his head remained silent just as the bodies were, but Ardyn felt the sting of its magic, piercing through his skin. It made whatever it was that Lunafreya had left on him sting – he wasn’t sure whether she had truly healed that part of his arm and now the Daemonic tissue was occasionally violently rejecting the human tissue, or if it was something different, something more magical in nature that she had done. He would never quite be able to ask, after all. There was no guarantee he would ever see the after that his mother loved to talk about; how it was what the Caelum bloodline truly protected. That the memory of those who had gone would never fade.

All those ancient families lost – and it were the Quasso on the throne. Not that he had ever truly wanted the throne. After leaving the city once he had learned that he was far from made for it, far from ruling without a second doubt like his father had been. But having it taken was a far cry from what Ardyn had wanted.

He stood up and the searing pain in his arm stopped. The crystal fell silent once more, though its current power was less than anticipated. When the night had first fallen and he had moved the pesky rock back to Insomnia he had been unable to stand in the throne room for longer than ten minutes at best. He had been in here for hours now, on the throne that should have been his.

“I’m home, and there’s not a single soul here that wants me in this place – least of all I myself. Fancy that.”

A night. Then the rise of day in numbers of a clock and vague memories alone.

When once more night fell, Ardyn rose the Infernian. Not with an inferno this time, not with a spark. Not even willingly. But there was one last fight that Noctis would have to manage before getting here. Just as Bahamut had tested the strength of the Accursed by letting him suffer on his own for two thousand years, Ifrit was to test the Chosen in a literal blaze of fire.

Oh, how Ardyn hated the long, hard to treat sicknesses. How the body succumbed, how the mind faltered. It was fitting that these were the trials that Bahamut chose to burden the black king with.

“I shall await you… above.”

If any of the other three lived past the battle with the Infernian, Ardyn would have to either disable them or dispose of them. The look that Ignis and Prompto shared as he vanished before the Infernian rose was enough of an answer. More than Ardyn wanted to know.

Disable, not dispose of. If they lived.

* * *

“ _...”_

“ _Very well, your mind is set then.”_

“ _It is rare for a goddess to speak in the mortal tongue, even if she is posing as Messenger.”_

“ _Let the details go, Accursed. The answer you seek is… yes. They were human once.”_

“ _I figured. Did they turn into Daemons, then, or did they truly only perish?”_

“ _The rise to the divine has certain… power requirements. The power all but spent, the Infernian’s weapon mutated under our very eyes as one after another the minor Astrals perished in sheer agony. After them came the epidemic you and yours called the first outbreak amongst mortals, the very time that the priests of the dead minor Astrals were beset and blamed for it.”_

“ _But they were human.”_

“ _They shed their humanity long ago. It would be slander to call them human. But mortal… mortal they were. Much like you are, at this very moment.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Perhaps you are… a modern minor Astral. Something to go with the Carbuncles that miraculously survived.”_

“ _And how did they?”_

“ _Necessity. It was necessity. Though a great number of them had to be… put down.”_

“ _Mortal psyches, even after ascending, are not as stable as you would have wished them to be, eh?”_

“… _Gods are not infallible.”_

“ _...”_

“ _I am… I am truly sorry that it came so far. But not much longer.”_

“ _Thanks for the answers. Not for anything else, Glacian.”_

“ _The… for a lack of better words, pleasure, was all mine, Accursed. We shall most likely not see each other on the final battlefield; go in peace. Accept the outcome.”_

* * *

He accepted the outcome. Accepted a great many things all at once the moment he finally felt the chill of death creep through his body. He was exhausted physically, but finally he allowed himself to feel as old as he truly was.

The kings of old, those cursed murderers-to-be, vanished as Noctis leaned down. A king, not a boy. Regal.

Surprisingly enough, Ardyn once more failed to feel remorse. Whatever conscience he had he had left far, far in the past. Whatever judgement brought, he would face it with the dignity of someone in full control of their actions. Anything else would have been a lie.

He was the Accursed, just as much as he had been the Crown Prince and the Healer.

Thus, as for once reality shifted and started going dim, he but cracked a smile.

“I shall await you… in the beyond.”

Perhaps this time he would truly arrive there. Just this once.

Not with a single regret – as butcher and bringer of darkness. The one they had believed him to be two thousand years ago he had become, and he nearly let out another dry amused cackle. But just in that moment it all faded. Finally.


	27. Four - Endings

“Hurry the fuck up!”

“Look, ma’am, I’m a novice pilot--”

“Tummelt, if you don’t hurry this shit the hell up, my boot’s going so far up your ass it’s gonna come out of your nostrils!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She couldn’t see through the sunglasses the both of them were wearing, but according to the rest of his expression he was just as worried as she was. But for just a split moment it looked like he was holding back a grin there.

Frey had woken her that morning screeching in fear. The city was on fire he had yelled as he had pounded his fists on her shoulders, but the moment she had opened her eyes and taken a peek out of the window her heart nearly stopped right on the spot. Her son was crying and begging her to get up and run so they wouldn’t have to go down in a blaze, but Aranea found herself unable to move from her bed as she watched the rest of the sunrise. The first sunrise in ten years.

Which only meant one thing.

Ignis and Prompto had left for Hammerhead just a couple days before, saying there was a hunt that Gladiolus had taken that needed the both of them. Aranea knew that they were all but waiting for the moment that Noctis would wake, and with them went young Talcott. Cor and Aranea had remained in Lestallum, apparently as guards of the town in case the sun never rose.

While she was pacing and yelling at the pilot, Cor sat on the airship like a statue. Like someone who had seen a ghost, or several ghosts that then turned him into a statue. Before she could unleash another volley of insults into Loqi’s direction for the turbulences they got into, Cor cleared his throat.

“Where’s Frey?”

“While you slept like a goddamn log, I dropped him off with Cindy. Poor girl could certainly need someone to be with her now that the drat sun’s up and her bratty grandfather’s stuck in traffic from Lestallum.”

Iris on the other side of the airship stifled a giggle.

“’sides, we needed to pick up Talcott.”

They certainly were an interesting bunch in a Niff airship, going down in the middle of a street in Insomnia. Nothing but strangely glittering dust danced in the streets here but it wouldn’t be long before the first people would start dancing in them. When the lamps in Lestallum had gone out for the first time in ten years the people had broken into dancing and singing. But neither of the people in this airship felt like singing. Dreamers or people who knew Dreamers, and they knew the price of the sunrise. They weren’t even certain if the ones going with their heroic sacrificial lamb had lived or not.

Aranea almost wished they hadn’t. Ignis himself would be without a duty or purpose, and even if he said that he would be able to cope with it she was certain he had only been putting on a front. Prompto, too, would be incredibly torn between leaving or staying, and eventually break under either choice he made. And although she never made an effort in getting to know Gladiolus closer she knew that his entire purpose was protecting his friend and liege, serving as a Shield of the King just as good as his father had been.

She hopped off the airship before it had properly landed – Loqi had not been lying when he said that he was a novice pilot. He’d only just started about a moth ago, and the airship made a strange pirouette as he tried avoiding squashing her like some minor insect. But Aranea needed to move, needed to make certain she would not go insane in there and yell at everyone or perhaps even attack them.

The sun burned in her eyes even through the sunglasses. It seemed unnaturally bright, even though she had been the one to only see unnatural brightness for years and years.

By the time her companions caught up to her she had already come across someone who had somehow managed to live through ten years of eternal night all on their own. That person definitely looked like a ghost, like they could not believe what was happening. Survivors all across Eos that had never sought refuge in Lestallum most likely looked like that now. Pale, staggering, like sleepwalkers that had just awoken from a terrible nightmare.

Insomnia was nearly bursting with magic residue. Once Cor and Iris told her which streets were the correct ones, the fastest way to the Citadel, broken streets and roadblocks in form of rubble and broken statues and airships notwithstanding, the energy all but increased.

Then, finally, on the steps leading into the Citadel, three figures. Broken, somehow, but they were there. Those outfits Aranea had never seen, and they looked like they were not exactly made for the men who were wearing them now but the much younger ones back when they left this city thinking they would only be on a short trip to Altissia and then back in the city together with Lunafreya.

As Iris ran towards them with a cry, Gladiolus indeed moved. Slowly, with a groan. His clothes were drenched in blood, it was on his face. There was a giant gash across the backside; most likely a stroke from an Iron Giant. But there was no injury to speak of; his back was unharmed as it could be safe for a thin line that looked like a neatly healed papercut.

Aranea had seen that a hundred times in the past, back when she was called Aranea Animosa and a different woman altogether. The sight robbed her of her energy and she stopped dead and watched kind of dumbfounded as Talcott and Loqi went to check on Ignis and Prompto respectively.

But much like Gladiolus their clothes were in tatters and stained in blood – but there were no injuries to speak of.

“It was… it was truly like the magic of a Healer.” She had only barely managed to wheeze that out and turned to look at Cor. Whatever he was thinking she was unable to read it as usual.

Somewhere behind them a commotion had started. Voices were filling the formerly dead city again. It was most likely still at the gates and the unusually quiet city carried these cheerful voices even to here, in front of the Citadel.

“The sun rose, Aranea. Was there ever any doubt that only a Healer could cleanse the Scourge away in one sweep?”

“It’s… it’s over, then?”

“We’ll see.”

The day began, and people were dancing in the streets.

There were reports of people who had been in the field. People who had left the city for a hunt, people who had caught the Scourge and wanted to die out there in peace. All at once everything had stopped for a heartbeat. Perhaps just a heartbeat, a breath, barely more than a split second. The Daemons that dropped like stones in the middle of a movement, often in the middle of a jump that preceded a killing blow. The pain, the hissing in the backs of people’s backs also stopped.

As Prompto told it with his voice cracking it was as if something had shot these things in the back. After that, only white. These three had been too close to the epicentre to see it, but during the early afternoon they met a clearly shaken fellow Dreamer.

The man looked like a sleepwalker, barely able to comprehend what was happening.

“Suddenly it was… over. They just vanished. Vanished! No explosions, no particles. Nothing. Gone as if they were just a hallucination – a hallucination that had been about to rip me into shreds! – and then naught but… silence. Silence, then the sun. As if it had never been gone.”

Nobody said a word as he wandered off again, but they had all seen it. The Mark on his neck had burned out – the Dreamer was free to pass on in peace after this, however death got him this time. Aranea almost wanted to pray for the first time in her life if only to ask the Glacian to let the final death be a peaceful one. But she refrained from it.

Next had been the sunset. A certain anxiety had filled the people, and then the next small miracle had happened.

“What if the bright thing never comes back?”

A girl who had been born into darkness, who had somehow managed to get herself a sunburn in just this one day of light, next to her cousin. Apparently neither of her parents had lived through the darkness.

Before her cousin could answer, though, it was Frey who had walked over and gotten her attention.

“It’ll come back. It always came back, or so I heard. And it came back after… ten years?” The cousin nodded at her son, and Frey crossed his arms and nodded as if he were the most important person. “Besides, look up there! I’ve not seen the moon in ages, but now we can see it clearly again! So even the darkest night won’t be as dark as it was before. All we need to do is wait.”

Aranea had to turn away and wipe away tears. All they needed to do was wait.

But some things couldn’t wait, and the three Crownsguard men were not injured, by any means. Thus they said that once night fell and people started getting calmer again, they wanted to check on… what they would find. Prompto and Ignis asked if Cor and Aranea wanted to come, which finally got something out of Gladiolus.

“Cor I get – but her? Would someone, anyone, _please_ fill me in?”

So they did, on their way up, and the last Shield of the King looked like someone had told him the sky was green and the Scourge had never existed. Still, Aranea and Cor remained outside the throne room. They truly had no place in there as Marshal of the Crownsguard under the king before this king and a Niff mercenary.

* * *

“There are some things I wish to do. Just a few, barely worth the mention.”

“So they’re either dangerous or stupid. Oi! Gladiolus! If you trample my son dead I’ll rip you clean in twain! Yeah, I know he’s a short scamp getting in everyone’s way, but I can’t exactly put him on a leash like a pet dog! So Prompto, which one is it? Dangerous or stupid?”

“Stupid.”

“Now you got me interested. Yeah, yeah, sure thing! We’re on break, you clown, we’ll join you in a sec, and yes, I’ll make certain he doesn’t get in your way again! Just a moment.”

“Meet me after sunset on the… on the hill overlooking Insomnia. The main gate, y’know. The others will be there as well – just us four. No campfires attached.”

“Music to my ears. I’ll be there. Alright _, alright!_ Frey, let Gladiolus do his work in peace and come with me. I’ll tell you the story of how Uncles Biggs and Wedge nearly left me out in the field on accident once.”

* * *

Three days, and all four of them looked like they had been fist-fighting Daemons without a break. Ignis especially managed to look completely dead both inside and outside, shortly followed by Cor – although the Marshal of the Lucian Crownsguard more looked like a man whose age finally caught up with him. The evening was warm and the night sky glittered above their heads just as it had before darkness. The particles had covered the moon and the stars for ten years; thus they had become another strange story that adults told that turned out to actually be real to the children born under the veil of eternal darkness. All these children would have to learn how life without darkness worked.

Normally good news.

Prompto’s expression was surprisingly grim when they settled on the hill.

“Good. Thanks for coming. You’ve all asked if it was something stupid or something dangerous, and I said it was something stupid. Well, it might be something dangerous after all – but I managed to catch a Dreamer. I asked him a couple things, and he answered before leaving Lucis for Accordo with the first batch of people going that direction. Well, you guys can guess who that was, so I’ll cut to the chase. I asked him if there was any way to summon a Carbuncle without having to turn to dying in desperation or just dying as Dreamer. I know all four of us have… some questions regarding what… what transpired. In the last few days. In the last ten years. Hells, in the last two thousand. And given that we lost the Oracle the Six are out of our reach. Not that the Infernian would answer. _Especially not_ after kicking him into next week before… well, you know.”

What Prompto dropped weren’t human or animal sacrifices. It wasn’t even an elaborate offering of incense or old forbidden Sol runes. It just was a bouquet of flowers, bound in ivy. Aranea looked at the flowers closer and saw that even though they had been cut off they still glowed slightly in the dark.

“A bouquet of… midnight amaranths tied together with ivy?”

Prompto laughed. “I asked Iris first, y’know, before I found him. She told me once that she had found a temple of the cult surrounding Carbuncle once, and the thing that was still most burned into her mind was the insane amount of ivy covering the place. Priests once used the non-mutated flowers and ivy, but we’ve only got midnight amaranths left at this point. I hope they’ll work. But yes, I intend to call forth a Carbuncle and ask.”

“Wait. How could that be dangerous?”

“Aranea, I’m certain you… noticed. But our Marks are not burned out. Iris’ has been for a long while. After the sunrise the hunter’s burned out. But the morning after sunrise I checked myself in a broken mirror. It wasn’t gone. I assumed you all… checked.”

They had. All of them had noticed that their Mark of the Dreamer had not burned out like one who had seen their story to an end – Aranea had nearly screamed.

“So I started thinking. And then I realised – we wanted to see it end. The sunrise tells us what happened, but… I assume neither of us really believe it. And since the Six do not answer...”

“You intend to ask the only Astral that might answer you.”

“Yes.”

Prompto tossed the flower onto a small pile of wood. Of course it would have to be a campfire like they happened all across the in-between; though not something large that people would gather around. Just four Dreamers around a fire waiting for an infernal minor Astral to grace them with their presence once again.

When Prompto set the bouquet on fire, none of them said anything. This place did not look like the Haven they usually woke up at after dying, but the feeling was eerily familiar. None of them liked the feeling of this, the familiarity of sitting together around a fire somewhere in the wilderness. At least the burning flowers smelled rather nicely for a good few minutes.

And when the smell vanished, a gust went across the already sputtering fire and made it die out. A magical gust, one that they had felt more than hundreds of times as they were again four around the fire. Aranea narrowed her eyes, Cor closed his, Ignis crossed his arms and Prompto started chewing on his lips.

The night was as dark as they had been before ten years of darkness, with the sole exception of there not really being much of a danger. No Walls would have to be raised to keep Daemons at bay. The only thing that would now start cropping up again would be nightly predators, something that had nearly vanished by the time the four of them had lived for the first time. Now that the Daemons were gone and would no longer prey on the nocturnal predators some natural predators would turn to nightly hunting trips again. That was ever the way of nature; it changed and adapted as it found it necessary.

Finally a familiar burst of sparkles. Ignis wanted nothing more than to snatch the slight gleam and shake it, yell at it until its ears fell off. But he remained still and merely started trembling slightly. It wasn’t like he saw where exactly it was, and only a vague sense of light would not tell him where the infernal creature was.

“ _Long has it been since we were called like this.”_

“Most likely since the first outbreak of Scourge that took your fellow minor Astrals and turned the wrath of the mortals against your priests until there were none left, I assume?”

“ _Not precisely. There were a few that lived as Dreamers. Whenever they remembered they would call us, if only to chat. But as their numbers diminished the ones that remained grew bitter and turned their bitterness on to us. We are but… creatures that send forth the Dreamers when they return and are ready once more. Even if these Dreamers dislike us we do our duty. Such is the law given to us by the Draconian; we cannot bend it. But… that is not why you called us here, Prompto Gemmae.”_

Prompto shook his head. “Prompto Argentum. And yes, there… there are some things we wish to know. First and foremost – our Marks. By any means, the sunrise should have… ended it.”

The Carbuncle sat down, its tail curling across its front paws. If Cor didn’t know any better he would have called it a peculiar cat. But this was far from the usual unusual cats one came across. Eccentric, yes, but not a pet by any means.

“ _Ended it?”_

Aranea closed her eyes with a sigh. “We were linked to the Accursed. So why are we not free from the ties now that the man is gone?”

“ _Perhaps it was not as simple as you assumed it was. What was it that you lived for, across times reaching as far back as the time of the Founder?”_

A long moment of silence covered the hill, and the breeze that went across it and towards Insomnia carried some of the ash from the former fire along with it.

“ _Prompto Argentum. Cor Leonis. Aranea Highwind. Ignis Scientia. Those are your names, those are the people you are first and foremost, despite the memories of hundreds of others that slumber within your heads. But – you are not the people who became Dreamers. You are the last incarnations, the culminations of knowledge, strength, whatever virtues you managed to gather across your lives. The Marks on your bodies are there because of the first incarnations. What you wish matters little, unless these four changed their desires together. It happened before, it happens time and time again. But, if you truly wish to know the reason why your Marks are not vanishing – ask not yourselves. Ask Prompto Gemmae, Cor Vigilis, Aranea Animosa and Ignis Pacis.”_

“Wait, wait. I don’t follow – we are these people, are we not? We have ever been the same people across all lifetimes, across every death and meeting at the campfire, have we not? Why are you differentiating between… last incarnation and first incarnation?”

“ _It is true that you have ever been the same souls, but you have never truly been the same people. The memories you made, the friends and family you had, are different from person to person. You are not like a priest of Carbuncle who truly is ever the same born and born again in another time perhaps under another name. But aside from similarities every incarnation of yours was its own person at its core. It did not feel like it once your memories awoke, of course. But the knowledge-seeking advisor is not the same as the bastard son of an emperor, who is not the same as the brother of a student, who is not the same as the royal retainer.”_

Again silence spread across the hill. Cor, Aranea and Prompto exchanged confused looks for about a minute before Ignis broke into hoarse laughter. He had ever been the quickest thinker out of all of them, and all three of them made slightly alarmed noises as they turned to look at the blind man.

“Oh, I get it. I finally get it. The passages that drove Alacris over the edge towards madness. The ones he never fully understood, the ones which I never understood in turn. I had been so obsessed with the differences between royals and Dreamers that I never thought about the meaning of individuality.” He shook his head and removed the sunglasses he normally wore to cover the worst of his scarring. “Cor, Aranea, Prompto. We always thought it would be over with Ardyn’s death – which isn’t true as we now learned. But, and that is the important thing. After a while whenever our memories awoke and until we arrived at the campfire shaken and scared, elated or simply feeling as anyone who died would, we continued thinking so. But that was not how we _first arrived there_. Remember? What is it that we truly wished as we burned and heard the commotion outside?”

The Carbuncle did not move, it did not even blink. It was not a living being, not any longer, not that the Dreamers surrounding it knew that. The knowledge had not passed the lips of the Six in aeons, and the one man who had been offered that knowledge during his time alive had perished but recently. The silence of the night seemed choking once again, and the four of them sat there with their heads lowered.

Finally it was Cor who breathed out loudly.

“Carbuncle. I ask this in place of Prompto Argentum. The Accursed. I ask you, did the Accursed… find either eternal rest or the empty void?”

The Creature stood up once more and turned around to look towards the city. Where formerly the Wall had shone even during the night there was nothing but the faint lights of the suburbs they had managed to restore electricity to so far. One day Insomnia would shine as brightly as Lestallum did again, and perhaps Lestallum would simply go back to being the second largest settlement instead of the last refuge of the people who had the courage to flee secure shelters in search of light.

“ _Whether it is eternal rest or the vast emptiness beyond even that… we cannot tell you. But, and that we can say with certainty we thought lost to us – the Scourge has been banished, and the Chosen and the Accursed accepted their fate. Ardyn Lucis Caelum is dead – truly dead this time, as is Noctis Lucis… Quasso. It is as you wished, once upon a hundred lifetimes, as Vigilis, Pacis, Animosa and Gemmae. Your duty is over – this is your last life.”_

And just for a split second they felt a burning sensation on their skin, an itch that would never once return. It vanished alongside the Carbuncle, and that was the last they saw of that creature for the rest of their lives.

* * *

“Man, I can’t believe I’m the one crying here. I thought it’d be Frey.”

“Hah. Don’t let Commodore Highwind hear that, or she’ll rip your ear off and take it to Niflheim as souvenir.”

“Well, I mean,” Prompto gestured vaguely at the airship that a handful of Niffs had boarded, “it’s not like you guys’re gonna die or something. You’re just going home – halfway across Eos.”

The Lucians around them did not understand exactly what they were saying – Prompto was talking to Loqi in Modern Niff. It had taken years of learning it together with the Niffs and later Ignis, but he had finally learned the language and spoke it well enough to not pass as novice any longer. It made him feel strange in that very moment though; it wasn’t like there would be many people left who he would be able to speak Niff with.

Loqi rolled his eye with a grin and put a hand on Prompto’s shoulder. “Yeah, we’re going home. Halfway across Eos even; you didn’t sleep in geology. Good for you. But yeah, we aren’t vanishing either. Once we’ve managed to restore Gralea’s power lines we should technically be able to reinstall some sort of phone line. Maybe even get the internet back online working together. Once that happens the distance won’t be as bad as it actually is; we aren’t living in ancient times where all you’d have would have been birds that carried letters or messengers on horseback or something. For now we need to rebuild, and after that we can lay the foundation of what we swore under oath during the last day of council. We’ll ensure no future generation will have to fight a war all across Eos.”

Prompto cracked a grin. It was what Noctis had said he wanted to do after finishing _this business_ , even though he knew he would never return from the throne room in the Citadel. Noctis never saw the dawn he had lost everything for, for which he had marched into his city not with an army but only with his most trusted friends. The people he began his travels with. Ignis and Gladiolus had said the very same before they had entered the throne room together; that they wanted to ensure that the world would progress as Noctis would have wanted it to.

Still, saying goodbye to the first few Niffs was harder than he thought it would be. Aranea had been rather quick to jump on the earliest convenience to leave Lucis – Ignis had told him why she acted like that. Just the other day some former servant of the Nox Fleuret household had asked some other Tenebraens if Commodore Highwind’s son had eyes eerily similar to Ravus Nox Fleuret’s. Those people hadn’t been able to reach a conclusion because Aranea had taken Frey with her to go to the final council meeting, but the dragoon had been spooked.

“Not today. Not ever. Never.” That was all she had said when asked if she wanted to stay here. “I’m Niff. He’s Niff. We wouldn’t be happy here.”

Her goodbye had been barely more of a quick salute, a lingering touch. She wasn’t exactly happy to leave her companions of two thousand years behind after being able to _live_ with them for the first time in two millennia – but she would have been even less happy if some Tenebraen recognised her son as Nox Fleuret and forced him to come to Tenebrae with them.

“Well, this is it, then.”

“Mhm.”

“Thanks for… well, for everything.”

“Eh? What are _you_ thanking _me_ for? It was thanks to you that the council didn’t immediately have my head upon arrival, though I came close to losing it around that Amicitia quite a few times.”

Prompto rolled his eyes now. “Idiot. You helped me find Umbra – you helped me come to terms with being born in Niflheim but still being a Lucian. You and the others tried telling me about things instead of brushing me off when I was actually curious about Niflheim. And, like… y’know.”

“No, Argentum, I don’t know.”

“Dammit, man! I’ll miss you. You’re… you’re my friend. A brother almost. And now you’re going halfway across the globe.”

Even Loqi seemed speechless for a second there before he started fiddling with his collar.

Then, finally, he let out a long sigh followed by a snort.

“I’ll send you some snow. Maybe I’ll get Frey Highwind to even get you some yellow now for your 31st birthday.”

There was a loud yell behind them – Aranea Highwind, threatening to sell Loqi to the Infernian for some small amount of gil if he made her son go look for yellow snow. At least that got a laugh out of most of the people seeing the Niffs off. Prompto, too, couldn’t help but grin even as they left.

* * *

“I’m getting too old for this nonsense.”

“So am I, Cor.”

“Well, you definitely do not look nearly as wrecked by age as I do, Monica.”

The woman laughed as they stretched on the Haven.

The runes on it did not longer glow. No wards of crystal magic remained – they were no longer necessary. There was not a single Daemon haunting the plains and hills, the streams or the seas. Only animals that had managed to survive the ten years of darkness remained alongside the vegetation that was starting to recover. They had planted several of those that had been thought lost to darkness, and most were growing again. But neither Cor nor Monica had been looking for that – they were on a mission to check if truly every Haven had lost its powers.

“That’s the last one. None of them retain their power.”

“Just as Lady Iris assumed, then. Not that we would have needed them, but it still feels like losing something of value. And whether I look the part or not – I too am too old for all these familiar things vanishing right under our hands, Cor.”

They both let out a sigh.

Cor had not been giving it too much thought. The peace in between rebuilding, the warm summer nights and crystal clear skies that gave way to the moon above had nearly managed to make him forget what had happened in the last three months. But now that they were resting he finally understood what had happened.

The people of Lestallum had scattered or returned to their homes to rebuild these. The city that had held so many people was emptying and what remained were nearly empty streets compared to the sheer volume of people who had lived there before. Change was sweeping across Eos at an almost alarming rate.

As much as he hated admitting it, it made him… nostalgic. He almost missed the nights he had tossed rocks at passing Daemons much to Prince Regis’ dismay. The nights he had spent there huddled up as someone else entirely. The nights he had watched his charge recover from long days of healing together with his fellow retainers.

The others were effectively out of his reach by now. Prompto had taken off into Lucis to offer help rebuilding everywhere and nowhere all at once. Within a month of leaving the capital a tale about this hunter from the Crown City who helped only in return for stories about the region he was in had spread across Lucis. It seemed oddly fitting, all things considered, especially for someone who had finally found his place in this kingdom – former kingdom. Ignis himself was entangled in the rebuilding of Insomnia. Where Iris offered fresher ideas for how to handle the broken parts, Ignis made certain that some things that were familiar did not change. The only thing that that meant was that it was extremely hard to speak to either of them at this point. And Aranea was in Niflheim, most likely embroiled in other ways of rebuilding her homeland together with the Niffs who had returned there from Lestallum and hopefully people they had found still alive in the country.

“So, what happens now?”

He looked at the stars above and let out a snort. “We retire and hope we’ve got more than a year or two of peace before that darned Glacian comes pick us up.”

“No, not… not that kind of thing. We’re Crownsguard – there’s no royals left.”

She didn’t know. Nobody but a select few knew, and Iris wanted it to remain like that. She was an Amicitia through and through she had said, no matter the circumstances of her birth.

“Like I said – we retire if they let us. As much as I hate saying that myself.”

Monica let out a sigh once again and rolled her eyes. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“You already hated that, what, 45 years ago? Get yourself something new to dislike about me, that’s getting quite literally old.”

“Oh, shut up, Immortal. Before death does that for you and your dusty old bones.”

* * *

Only the wind howled through the canyon. Going on his own would have made it easy to accidentally slip off the side and hopefully die a painful but quick death at the bottom of it, but Ignis managed to tear himself away from the edge and instead keep his descent as closely to the walls as he could without falling over. The time he had been here before he had been beset by the creeping feeling of being watched and feeling the familiar thrumming energy coursing through nearly every stone in this place.

Now there was nothing. The place was all but dead – the spirits that had haunted it had been released at long last. But that was not why he had come here.

Still, when he reached the lowest point of the Proving Grounds he bowed slightly before turning to the sides of that stone bridge leading merely into a wall. According to all the tales he had been told by the people who had been in here – Cor, Gladiolus, Prompto – there were swords here. He merely needed to find the correct one.

The blindness didn’t bother him the slightest, it was a part of him. But right now he wished he could see which swords he was grabbing. After a while his hands were cut open and bleeding and he was far from having found the one he was looking for.

That was when he heard steps.

“Thought you’d be down here.”

“… What do _you_ want.”

“Look, man, I told you before there’s better ways to off yourself than the Proving Grounds. And no, Ignis. I’m not even here to stop you this time. Curiosity killed the cat – or drove the Amicitia into the Proving Grounds, I suppose.”

Ignis suppressed a growl as Gladiolus approached him. He had truly wanted to be alone, and he had every intention of returning back to Insomnia alive and in one piece. Perhaps with injured hands from attempting to find a single rapier in a sea of swords with naught but said hands to guide him, but still alive and well.

“The Founder’s sword.”

“...”

“That’s what you’re looking for. You want to return it to the tomb, am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“Let me help you.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help. Especially not _yours_. Go away.”

Another cut. Ignis cursed himself and his blindness and continued his search. It simply were too many swords for one blind man, but he would rather jump into the canyon and let Aranea beat the hell out of him in the afterlife than admit he could use two working eyes to Gladiolus. The former Shield of the King and the former advisor had barely spoken ever since the days following the eternal night. All that needed to be said had been said, and their need to stick together had died together with Noctis. And while Ignis usually hated being the one to hold a grudge he still did not find it in himself to truly forgive the other man for all that had been said and done following the events of Altissia up to the night the Chosen defeated the Accursed.

“Good, fine, I’ll leave in a sec. Just hear me out, okay?”

“No. _Leave_.”

Once more one of the more recently scattered blades dug into his fingers, and Ignis held back a hiss of pain and frustration. What surprised him, though, was the fact that Gladiolus still had not made a move. Normally the man had the infuriating habit of grabbing whatever Ignis was looking for and handing it to him without asking first – normally mere seconds before Ignis would have reached for it. Perhaps he had no intention of helping without getting explicit permission to.

Too little, too late. Ignis hissed as a sword he had not noticed cut into his leg as he passed it.

“Look, I don’t want your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. But you really shouldn’t be digging through old weapons all on your lonesome somewhere in the middle of Lucis in a place so godsforsaken that even the spirits haunting it have left it at long last. It’s not good for someone as important to Insomnia as you are – especially not in your current… condition.”

“If you mean my blindness, thank you _very much_ for your concern, _Lord Amicitia_ , but I can very well manage! Now if you would be as _kind_ as to leave the blind _loon_ to his task on hand, that would be most--”

“That’s not what I meant. You’ve been putting up a brave front – all of us three have. But you’re not okay. None of us are. And as much as you hate to admit it… dammit Iggy, you’re a mess. It’s been six months.”

Finally he stopped. His limbs stung after getting cut open by discarded weapons, but finally Gladiolus had managed to stop him.

“Yes? It has been six months. Six months, and you’re all _ready to just forget it ever happened._ Crown him _post-mortem_ , move on with life, rebuild Insomnia _like nothing happened!_ They told you what it meant to us – what it meant to me. I lost not only my best friend and liege, I lost _two lieges!_ Two! Quite frankly, I’ve been sick of this nonsense about a month in, and it only got worse when Prompto took off. I should have gone with him. But instead I thought drowning myself in work would work just as Aranea suggested. But it didn’t. I can’t sleep at night, I can’t think straight at day, and all in all I wish I had the courage to jump down this canyon and end this _pointless_ prolonging of what is inevitable. At least it’d speed up the whole waiting game.”

He furiously tossed a sword aside, and by the sound of it he barely missed Gladiolus. Whatever. Ignis was here to find Izunia Lucis Quasso’s chosen weapon, not to have a heart-to-heart conversation with a man he was frankly rather sick of.

“With blood royal went any relation between us other than the fact we are the heads of noble houses of now little influence. So what precisely do you wish to gain from this?”

A long sigh. “I simply wish to help my friend, rifts between us or no. Once this here is over we can go on hating each other for things said and done that cannot be undone – but. Just this once. Let me help you as we would have as Gladio and Iggy, on their way to Altissia together with Noct and Prompto. Once we’re out of this canyon after returning the Founder’s rapier to his tomb we can be Lords Ignis Scientia and Gladiolus Amicitia who hate each other while rebuilding Insomnia again. I… dammit. I miss Noct. I miss Prompto, even though that lousy bugger’s not even dead. I miss you. I just… wish we could go back to those evenings. King’s Knight. Making daring plans of storming the imperial capital, kicking the emperor in the face, taking the crystal back and rebuilding the city together as King, Shield, Advisor and trusted Commoner. As _friends_. I never wanted to _bury_ Noct. I just fucking wish I had had the guts to offer you a hand that day we buried him. I didn’t. But I damn well mean to try now, even if it is too late for us to ever return to these days. So, just this once. Just this _afternoon._ Please. Let me help you finish your duty instead of having to watch you hurt yourself as you try to fight the urge to jump off the cliff.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. There were a great many things he thought all at once, way too many emotions that came crashing in. He was offended. He was happy, he was depressed and downright furious that Gladiolus had the gall to come here and interrupt him. Ignis was relieved, he felt like a weight had lifted off his shoulders as another one came crashing down all at the same time. He was steaming in hatred but at the same time felt that friendship that he had pronounced dead a while ago.

Eventually he settled for a dry laugh.

“Just try to catch me in case I actually jump. And if you don’t, well, return the sword and make sure you find a good excuse for why you’ve got no body to return to Insomnia. Now help me find that sword, we don’t have all afternoon for this. There’s a city we’ve got to return to. … Together. Maybe not as friends. Maybe not as enemies.”

By the sounds of it Gladiolus immediately made his way over to the Rapier of the Founder. As far as Ignis’ hearing was concerned he had apparently been looking on the completely incorrect side of the Blademaster’s chosen final trial ground. It was then that he heard a laugh he hadn’t heard in about ten years; a familiar rumble from Gladiolus’ direction as he pulled a sword out of the stone ground. “Heh. Estranged brothers, maybe? That’d work; that wouldn’t be friends or enemies, but still have… some weight, right?”

“That seems… suitable. Yes, it works. Estranged brothers Ignis Scientia and Gladiolus Amicitia.”

* * *

Three years after the sunrise they met up.

They had all changed for better or for worse, and when they had left civilisation behind them they let their true age show. They were all tired, all four of them. It had been so long, but for once they knew that there would be no campfire.

“And you really went out of your way to find this place, Ignis?”

“Yes. Reconstruction still has me tied up most of the time, but whenever I feel like I would rather bury myself under some of the rubble I make certain to leave the city. For a good while trying to find this place kept me busy. Now I’ll have to find something else to keep my mind away from dark places.”

“Well, maybe you should try lending Gladio a hand. His son’s rather fond of you.”

“Ah. I thought you hadn’t noticed that.”

“Hey, I got eyes trained for shooting! Something like that doesn’t escape my eagle eyes.”

It was ironic to laugh at this place, but for once it felt correct.

All the dead Havens across Lucis. Cor and Monica had never been the ones to check this particular one, but Ignis had managed to find it after years of searching. It was far removed, on a hill that had been surrounded by trees once. Only a small number of the formerly endless forest surrounding this Haven had survived the darkness. What had taken root there instead was an entire field of flowers.

It was the one they had met up every session of the in-between. The place they went to after they died, the place they waited for the others to arrive, the place they left when all of them had reunited and spoken with Carbuncle.

No minor Astral now pushed its way through the trees and onto the platform. The runes did not glow any longer. It wasn’t night, either.

There was only a sunset, slowly happening as it always did during Lucian summers. That was one of the things that had never changed in the two thousand years between their last staying at a Haven while alive and now. As much as they all had started to dislike this place, coming here felt strangely like they had returned home for a moment.

But that wasn’t why they were here.

A breeze went across the hill and the field of flowers bent under the wind. It was a calming rustle, one they had heard before during the long night. It had been in a similar field to this that they had spoken with Ardyn before the man left. Cor and Aranea had never seen him again, and Ignis and Prompto had not faced the Accursed in battle. There was, of course, no tomb. Ignis and Talcott had started correcting history books and records. People started slowly accepting the truth even if they refused to call the royal family Quasso. They were by any means the family Caelum even if the name had been stolen. And as far as the average human was concerned, both bloodlines had died together with the Chosen and the Accursed anyway.

Not that Iris planned on having biological children as far as they knew. She claimed she had no time for this nonsense of finding a husband and having a kid unlike her brother.

Noctis, dead as he was, had a marvellous tomb. One befitting a king who had died to save them all. Not that Noctis would have ever wanted something like this, as Ignis had tried telling those people time and time again. They still insisted on effectively making the throne room a tomb dedicated to the Chosen. All that was in said room was the powerless crystal, barely more than a hard but gorgeous rock, and two swords. Both of them were stuck in the throne side by side – the Sword of the Father and the Sword of the Lightbringer. That was what people called Noctis.

Lightbringer.

It certainly sounded better than ‘Sword of the Chosen’, which was the name that Regis had joked about dryly sometime after Noctis had been appointed the Chosen. Cor didn’t like remembering these times at all and he shook his head.

‘Buried’ together with him was Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. She had become something of a mythological figure despite the fact she wouldn’t even have been past 40 years at this point if she had lived. Much like Noctis people had started revering her as a woman who had gone as far as dying for Eos to ensure its safety. And thus they laid the Oracle to rest together with the King. A final testament to the fact that these two had died taking down the Accursed.

Here, amidst this field of midnight amaranths they had built a small memorial. Hardly right for a man who had near single-handedly led Eos to ruin – hardly befitting a man of royal blood. But there were no people who knew that the Accursed had been a Healer once – there were no people who knew that a Healer would become the Accursed. That was the only thing that Ignis left out whenever he corrected a history book, and Talcott was his accomplice. Let Eos believe there was only one Healer instead of two. Only the noble and selfless instead of also the bitter and hateful.

It had seemed only right to unofficially bury him right here. This Haven had been their home for so long, and Ardyn had ever been related to their being here. Let the dead rest – and they would never return here after this, they had decided.

The amaranths bent under the breeze.

“This is it, this truly is it. We… we did it. It’s over.”

“So it is, Cor, so it is. All that’s left is… living, I suppose.” Prompto leaned backwards. “And after that…?”

“After that,” Ignis turned his head towards the sunset, “who knows. We’ve never died without having to return back into the field. I am rather curious about that, I won’t lie.”

“Hey, Specs. I said no dying before your time. Sure, catch death somewhere out in the snowfields because of your scientific curiosity – but no actual actively dying _for_ your scientific curiosity. Besides, don’t we still have something to do? Even someone as old and crusty as Cor?”

“Hey. Technically speaking I am your superior – back then and even now. Mind your manners, _young lady._ ”

Laughter instead of stories of lives wasted in one way or another. It seemed a fitting end, even though they all knew that the afterlife might just be an extensive lie made up by the gods to take some weight out of the word death. Besides, they did not know whether they would actually meet the people they wanted to meet – divine accords or no, there was no confirmation that kings would even grace the grounds of the afterlife if they existed. And the Accursed and the Founder were a pair of people who would most likely be exceedingly hard to find, if the Accursed had ever been permitted to open his eyes again somewhere. It was all the will of the gods and the people to overlook grave sins like that – and as usual with the gods involved, mortal voices mattered little. Perhaps it was Ardyn’s turn to get stuck on a camping ground for ages.

The four of them would not get stuck on one again. Never again after death.

They never returned to this place. But they were content with that.

* * *

“Have you reached your conclusions?”

“ _Yes. The first incarnation and I have discussed this rather thoroughly for a while, as you noticed.”_

“ _Eventually, the last incarnation and I came across a common point in our arguments. Thus, we are indeed ready to tell you the conclusion we reached.”_

“ _We would...”_

“… _like to split.”_

“ _It would not be right to keep all the others from enjoying what none of us ever enjoyed.”_

“ _And so we decided that we would keep what memories we made, and leave the rest to the others.”_

“ _It is what feels right. And we both feel like our fellow former Dreamers would reach the same conclusion.”_

“As you wish. You thus shall pass through the gates not alone, but together. Not one, not two – but all of you. Is that what you wish?”

“ _Yes.”_

“ _Yes.”_

“So be it.”

“ _Wait! The first incarnation and I just have been wondering...”_

“ _What about you and yours, Carbuncle? Will you ever be able to cross these gates and reunite with your lost fellow minor Astrals?”_

“Perhaps one day. But as long as but the faintest trace of blood royal remains, we are to watch them. As long as mortals require our services, we will remain as watchers of the in-between. Only when the mortals no longer require us, when blood royal has truly run dry… or when the Draconian declares Eos a lost case… only then will we pass on. But until then we will continue with our duty to lead the Dreamers forth for as long as they need or want to. We have done naught else since the day of our creation. … Now then. Aren’t you curious to find out whether you will find the Accursed beyond there or not? And even if you do not – do you not wish to see all these people that have been waiting for you to come here for all this time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looking through... older stuff I wrote, back during the peak I had with gen5 in German, I realised something. Normally I stop at around 10-15 chapters at most, and my wordcount also peaks at around 60k-70k across these chapters.
> 
> Amaranthus single-handedly doubled all of that despite. well. let's say I was planning on maybe 16 chapters. The game-period was maybe one, two chapters per person, I hadn't planned any of the interlude chapters until I started, I think, Alacris. This was supposed to be a normal length (for my averages) AU - it didn't turn out to be one. I actually finished this during the week I spent without internet connection and had to lean back in bed for about 3 hours before saving the document and closing it, because it feels kinda unreal after nearly 150k words and 27 chapters to actually finish this.
> 
> I'd seriously like to thank the people who stuck with me who are reading this right now. I know it's not perfect in any way, shape, or form, but I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely had a lot of fun writing it despite... complications down the line.
> 
> Specifically, I'd like to thank Zotos for calming me down when Episode Gladio released. I kind of had a major freak-out because it bowled over several things WAY down the line, and also messed with Cassius' chapter which was about halfway written at the time. She sat down with me and worked through the issues I had, and offered nothing but reassurance that the Prompto stuff would be done before Episode Prompto released and messed everything up (BOY DID IT EVER MESS EVERYTHING UP. Or at least would have if I hadn't been done by then).  
> thetealord and jonphaedrus also did nothing but support me and this, but I honestly feel like anything I can say here would sound kinda silly. Especially before they're still taking me into savage despite the fact I was gone for a week straight and haven't set as much as a foot in there and they've cleared/the rest of the group's about to clear. Thanks you two. I'll still hire a sniper to take you both out tho. jsyk  
> SheerahChi, for the outside support. It really helped talking about things on twitter like that!  
> Shiary, also for the support like just throwing a short comment. Those usually made me grin. Thank you for that!  
> Ce1ty and the other commenters, too, and the other readers that are out there, but I've said as much before. Thanks for sticking with me.
> 
> Depending on how I feel about it, I might revise the ~afterlife oneshot~ I wrote out of bitter boredom while without internet in the last week. Or explain some other things I didn't touch (I said this was getting more massive than anticipated, and it certainly is even outside of what made the cut).  
> But for now, it's done.
> 
> Though, have you guys ever seen an amaranth? I learned more than I ever needed to know about that kind of flower while choosing the title! While the "midnight amaranth" that's mentioned in the story is not edible (but formerly used in ancient medicines), actual ones apparently are, and sort of nutritious to boot?   
> It's also one of my favourite colours. Weird how that all happens just because I chose a flower name because it's called love-lies-bleeding and comes from the Greek word for "unfading".
> 
> Anyway.  
> Thank you all for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Amaranthus, or: tumblr user aethercurrent/twitter user cleignewheat spends hours looking at latin dictionaries and screaming into her hands


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